Maria, who doesn’t want her full name used, is standing in the warm veranda at the back of Naas Men’s Shed before a rapt audience.
Her husband has Parkinson’s and dementia and attends the Co Kildare men’s shed once a week for an art class. Maria cares for him, with some HSE support, but has to pay for night-time care to keep him at home.
What would she like from the next government? In a rare moment of silence amid the usual joshing and general raucousness, Maria articulates a key theme for the shedders ahead of the looming general election.
“I think men should be given the choice to be cared for at home, in their own houses, surrounded by their own families, friends and communities, rather than being placed in a nursing home where they know nobody,” she says. “Especially, and unfortunately, if they have any form of dementia, which stresses them even more when they just want to be surrounded by familiar faces.”
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She would like the Government “to acknowledge the work that men have put in all their lives and who now need help and support from the State”, she says.
The ability to be cared for at home is a matter of dignity, she believes, as is the right for carers to be paid a decent wage for taking on this vital work of caring for people in their homes.
Addressing the rest of the group of men, she asks: “Does anyone here want to be put in a nursing home?”
They respond “No” in chorus.
“If you end up getting sick, where would you like to be cared for?”
“At home,” answers one man.
“By whom?” she asks.
“By our next of kin, whoever that is,” another replies, before they burst into a round of applause.
You ring up the GP and you’re at least 10 days, maybe more, from an appointment. I want the doctor to be available to me when I’m sick
It is a key theme for the members of Naas Men’s Shed, the many ways in which the State can support care in the community, whether it’s nursing staff for people living with incurable illnesses, or funding for community groups such as men’s sheds, which combat loneliness and isolation.
There are more than 450 men’s sheds around the country, with thousands working on local projects such as woodwork, gardening, carpentry and community work.
Norman Farragher, one of the organisers of the shed in Naas, says the relatively modest funding such organisations require is repaid to society many times over.
With an ever-increasing senior population in Ireland, the State “should recognise that this is the best money they could spend and expand it more”, he says.
Johnny Dooley, another shedder, wants greater investment in traditional healthcare. Many of the shed’s members are older than 70 and entitled to free medical care, but the ability to easily access a GP is a problem, he says.
“Men tend to make a late decision [to go to the doctor],” he says. “But you ring up and you’re at least 10 days, maybe more, from an appointment. I want the doctor to be available to me when I’m sick.”
Housing and homelessness are big issues for the men of the shed, unsurprisingly, but what to do about it?
For Noel Higgins, one of the older shedders, there are several ways to address the crisis, including exploiting unused office and retail space to provide homes and revive town and city centres.
He urges the Government to deploy its resources rather than leaving the field to private developers. “When we were a poor country ... we were able to build houses for all these people, and I think at the time the responsibility for building these houses at that time was with the local authorities.”
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When that power was taken away from local authorities, he says, “it led to the rise of the private sector, and possibly that’s what gotten us into the place we’re in today”.
All agree on the need for better pension provisions and the abolition of the universal social charge – the tax introduced at the height of the financial crisis to help shore up the public finances – but on other issues there is plenty of disagreement.
Take downsizing. Some of the shedders want to be able to downsize because their houses have become too big to manage alone.
Some fear the cost of such a move. Others are reluctant to give up the homes they have lived in all their lives. John Dooley says – only half in jest – that he would be happy to downsize provided he could bring his neighbours with him.
On the environment, there is frustration with the Government’s perceived insistence on solar panels for individual houses. Someone says they are “being rammed down our throats” by politicians, while countries such as China pump emissions out into the atmosphere.
At the same time, “never once did you hear them talk about sewage being pumped into the sea around the coast”, says Paul Deegan.
Crime is also an issue for Piery Holden, who says that “antisocial behaviour at the moment in Naas is terrible – it’s absolutely terrible”. He describes one part of the town as having become particularly unsafe.
“Years ago you could walk down there, morning, noon and night, any time of the day and be safe. Now at a certain time at night no man or woman is safe walking down there,” he says.
“There’s been several attacks over the last couple of years. And yet there’s very few Garda patrols. You never see them.”
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