A mother who provides 24-hour care for her disabled adult daughter has hit out after her Carer’s Allowance was stopped.
County councillor Ann Norton, from Barefield in Co Clare, looks after 23-year-old Nicole who has cerebral palsy and other complex needs.
A founder of the Clare Crusaders Clinic, which provides free therapy to more than 450 children with special needs in the county, Ann said she was shocked to discover her allowance had been cut off.
The 47-year-old revealed after means testing, she lost her €137-a-week payment because, along with her small councillor’s wage, her partner is earning more than the allocated amount.
The mother of three said he is not the biological father of Nicole and his income should be excluded, leaving just hers which she said is below the threshold.
Ann told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Nicole was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 13 months old which resulted in a speech impairment. And she also has a vision impairment which we discovered when she was in fifth year.
“She’s a full-time wheelchair user. I feed her, we have to get her up from bed in the morning and put her to bed at night. I have to help her going to the toilet, shower her – I basically I do everything for her.
“I spend hundreds of euro a week between private therapy that the HSE don’t provide and on travel as we have a lot of private consultants in Dublin and Limerick.
“Means shouldn’t come into it – either the State values its citizens or it doesn’t.
“My two daughters have no legal rights as my partner is not their biological father. My partner does not have any obligation.
“If something happened to me in the morning, it’s not up to him to take care of them. I gave up my business when Nicole was five as I couldn’t work and look after her at the same time.
“For me it’s a total insult. The letter I got back basically told me that I was no longer a carer.
“My Carer’s Allowance was stopped, my travel pass was taken off me and everything was done within two to three days.
“They [the State] should be supporting us more now than ever with Covid-19, not taking things away from us.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection refused to comment on an individual case.
However, she said: “Means are any income belonging to the carer and their spouse, civil partner, or cohabitant, property... or an asset that could bring in money or provide them with an income.
“If someone is married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting, the first €665 of their combined gross weekly income is disregarded [i.e. not taken into account in the means test].”
