‘We are bottom of the list again’

“I AM just so mad, we’re at the bottom of the list again,” was the furious reaction of a carer from the home county of the Finance Minister last night.

Furious with the meagre scraps the Budget had to offer, Ann Hughes, 57, from Tullamore, Co Offaly, said the increase in her carer’s allowance would make little difference to her life or that of her autistic and intellectually disabled 26-year-old daughter, Debbie.

On the increase in her carer’s allowance from €153.60 to €180, she said: “That is around €27 more a week. I’m hardly going to go mad. He is not even taking into account the cost of living here.”