Taoiseach will battle civil servants over care reform

LEO Varadkar has pledged to take on top civil servants who try to thwart proposed major expenditure on the reform of care services.

The Taoiseach made the pledge in a letter to party members after the Care referendum was rejected.

Mr Varadkar pledged that the Coalition would engage in major reforms of care, including ending the means test for the Carer’s Allowance; increasing the Carer Support Grant; completing the review of means-tested payments to carers and parents of children with serious disabilities before the next Budget; opening more respite centres; ratifying the optional protocol on the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities; and improving access to more affordable childcare for lone parents. Mr Varadkar also conceded that in retrospect ‘the people were right’.

And in light of revelations that Department of Finance advice to the Government said the final wording on Care was ‘intended to avoid a concrete and mandatory obligation to provide support’ for carers, Mr Varadkar warned that, when it came to the proposed changes, ‘any resistance from the permanent government [the civil service] will be overcome by the elected one’.

In a letter to party members, Mr Varadkar said: ‘Last Friday [March 8], the Irish people voted decisively to reject proposals we made to amend the Constitution on the family and care. The next day, I said that the Government would accept and respect the outcome. This wording will not be put before the people again.’

He added: ‘For most of my time in politics, I have been on the winning side in referendums – Europe, children’s rights, divorce reform, marriage equality, abortion.’ But he conceded: ‘I have also been on the losing side in referendums; abolition of the Seanad and Oireachtas enquiries. Disappointed at the time, amid recriminations, I came to realise that the people were wise and made the right decision.’

He defended the Government’s record on carers, noting: ‘We are improving access to the State contributory pension to recognise that many long-term carers could not make PRSI contributions while caring.

‘From June, the means test for the Carer’s Allowance will be relaxed and the Carer Support Grant isn’t means-tested at all.’

The Taoiseach added that in the case of the support grant: ‘We should increase it.’

He said: ‘When it comes to disability, we will do all that we can to provide our citizens with the assessments, therapies, and personal assistance they need.’

However he warned: ‘This is easier said than done. With a budget for disability services having been increased to almost €3billion a year already, there is no lack of money, compassion, political will, interest, or concern. There is an absence of suitably qualified staff willing and available to work in the area, and the systems and organisations to assign the resources we do have efficiently.’

Mr Varadkar warned his party members that ‘the Government has a year to run at most. It’s not a lot of time’.

He said he was determined to demonstrate that ‘we have heard, understood, and are acting on what people said to us in the ballot box on March 8.’ But, the Taoiseach is likely to face significant criticism from within his party this week.

Concern is high over the legal advice in the wake of revelations about the positioning of the Department of Finance and the warning that, when it came to ‘durable’ relationships, there would be no certainty as to how the term would be understood by the courts and there was a likelihood of increased litigation in succession, tax, immigration and welfare.

Senior Fine Gael sources said: ‘The plan was to run these referendums in the previous administration but they received clear legal advice

‘The people were wise and right’ ‘Kill any attempt to give carers rights’

from the then attorney general’s office that the civil servants would kill any attempt to give rights to carers stone dead.’

They added: ‘Their advice was that there was not an adequate formula of words beyond simple deletion to deal with mothers in the home.’

Another source confirmed: ‘It was made crystal clear, politically and legally, to the last government that Finance will drain any impetus out of any attempt to give carers fiscal rights.

‘We dodged a bullet then but apparently the smartest cabinet in the world forgot to duck this time,’ they added.