Izzie Dempsey never wanted to become an activist. Voicing a sentiment that will be familiar to thousands of carers throughout the Republic, she says she never wanted to get involved in late-night letter-writing, pleading and constant frustration. Caring for her handicapped daughter, Ann, gave her little time for her own life, her husband Brian or her other eight children, let alone the problems of others.

But although she says she is "a lousy writer" she clearly is not, and she readily admits she "can put up a good fight on my better days".

One of those better days took place in March 1997, when she was asked by a social worker to go to a conference on carers in Limerick organised by the Soroptimist Society. "I fought not to go," she says. "How could I, with a Down's syndrome daughter of 17 to be cared for?" Izzie says she lost the fight to stay away chiefly because she had been quite ill herself "and the social worker was stronger than I was at the time".

So she set off from her home in Co Kildare, rowing with a group of rugby supporters on the bus just, as she admits now, because they were there.

"In Limerick I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. There were carers there from all over Ireland - men and women and young girls. Most of them were exhausted, suffering burn-out, and frustrated no end. The one thing they had in common was a very deep rooted commitment to looking after the caree - or sometimes carees.

"They were worried about the future: who was going to care for the person with disability if something happened to the carers? They were saying `who cares for the carers?' I got three minutes' notice from the Naas/Newbridge branch of the Soroptimists to say something. I had my say about respite care and the reluctance of successive governments to do anything worthwhile for the carers. It is neglect really on the part of the powers that be.

"At the end of the conference one young girl stood up and poured her heart out. She was about 25 - maybe 23 or 24 - young by any standards to be a carer. But the biggest shock of all was that she became a carer at 16. Everyone else left home to work or whatever. All her young life was ruined. She loved her mother to bits but was so tired and so frustrated. She said her mother was now a selfish old woman who was only in her early 60s."

The implications for the future life - or absence of it - for the young girl were clear. "It was then that I decided that I had been lucky, and one way or another a Kildare carers' association would happen," explains Izzie.

So she started into a life of huge phone bills and late nights. On September 5th, 1997, Izzie booked the Court Hotel in Naas hoping that 30 people would turn up. About 60 came. "I said my bit about what it was like to be a carer in front of all the councillors around Kildare who also attended. They also came to the next meeting, as did 80 carers.

"It was about December 11th, just after the Budget, and all hell broke loose. McCreevy (Charlie McCreevy the Minister for Finance and TD for Kildare) got the works in his absence. Senator John Dardis and Bernard Durkan TD were asked what they were going to do, and it was demanded that they do something in a hurry. Following that, I held a few more meetings and deputations to Deputy Mary Wallace, Mary Harney's office, and Charlie McCreevy's."

Now carers keep ringing Izzie to find out what is happening "and all I say is maybe this time . . . In September of this year I felt better leaving McCreevy's office - this time I feel it just may be the year that carers benefit."

"Caring is difficult. The child of six months is cute and you talk and chat while dressing and feeding it, but can you imagine how it must be 30 to 40 years down the road and you are still doing what you did for the six-month-old baby?"

Izzie instances some of the day-to-day experiences of a carer. "Imagine," she says, "the feelings of a son or daughter who had a great relationship with a mother or father, and now the parent has Alzheimer's, not recognising the child. Yet they themselves must be cared for as a small child. Imagine the anxiety of a carer of a mentally handicapped person. The dangers involved and the worry caused by television shows such as States of Fear. We are all scared stiff. We are on duty all day every day and we are tired and worried. What the State has done so far is too little, too late for many, many carers."

At present, there is a carer's allowance but it is not payable to those who are already in receipt of social welfare payments. It is also means-tested. Izzie has prepared a "shopping list" for this year's Budget. "Carers urgently need respite," she says, explaining that most are so tired that they need, more than anything else, a break. Many even need encouragement to get over the guilt which ensues if they take a break. This year, Izzie and the Kildare Carers' Association organised a respite weekend for around 40 carers in the Seven Oaks Hotel in Portumna, Co Galway. The major worry was that the nurses' strike would do away with the planned respite care, leaving the carers stuck. In the end, the nurses returned to work in the week before the respite weekend, but between fund-raising and organising, Izzie says the committee was "all but destroyed".

"All carers should get some allowance," she adds. If carers can't get recognition for what they do, when the State is awash with cash, then Izzie despairs of ever getting what she needs. "It should not be means-tested either," she adds.

Izzie also says that the drivers on school buses can not be responsible for all the children. Helpers sharing the legal responsibility should be the norm, she argues.

This year Rehab has called on the Minister for Finance to allocate £10 million for respite care. The money would allow 4,000 carers in Izzie's position to have a break. Rehab also wants to see the Minister contribute an extra £3.8 million towards schemes leading to jobs for the disabled - it says this amount could lead to another 300 full-time jobs.

It also wants to see the weekly disability allowance increased. Rehab chief executive Frank Flannery says current services are "not economically sustainable".

Tongue in cheek, this year Izzie wrote to the Minister with another suggestion. That was that he "tell the various unions to sod off before the Celtic Tiger dries up and come out and say: `I am going to help the carers and the disabled and disadvantaged' ". "It's worth a try", she adds.