Carers are supported inadequately with both services and income, and so experience "exclusion and inequality", the Equality Authority will say today.
In a major report on the position of the State's 150,000 carers, the authority says this group is discriminated against in terms of their access to jobs, income, education, health and accommodation.
"These are fundamentally important to the quality of life and the choices open to carers," according to the report, Implementing Equality for Carers.
Carework in the report is defined as "the provision of assistance and support, on an unpaid basis, to family members, relatives or friends who need such care because of disability, old age or long-term illness".
It finds the State assumes families will provide such care, with little public support, and says there is "a need to develop a greater role for the State in relation to the provision of care services."
It continues: "The extent to which public supports ensure people with caring responsibilities have real choices . . . is central to achieving equality for carers."
It points out that more than half of us will have caring responsibilities at some stage in our lives and that almost everyone will need care. It also points to the "large economic contribution carers make" through long hours of unpaid work. "On the other hand there are losses to the economy when caring work results in barriers to participation in paid employment."
Carers are most likely to be women and most (57 per cent) provide 14 hours or less of care a week. Just over a quarter (27 per cent) providing 43 hours or more a week. Most commonly carers look after a parent or parent-in-law, followed by a spouse or partner. Many, mainly women carers, also look after children. In modern Ireland, almost two-thirds (64 per cent, or 90,000) of carers are also holding down a paid job.
The report calls for "genuine choices in relation to caring, paid employment or a combination of the two . . . If paid employment is a desired option for carers, carers need to be assured of full equality in practice in the workplace."
The 160-page report also looks at equality for carers in terms of their social participation, personal development, status and policy-making/political participation.
Some 41 recommendations are made, including that:
employment, social and health policies be co-ordinated to meet the employment needs of carers;
carers be identified as a specific group within Irish development and employment policy;
a specific initiative on work-life balance for carers be developed;
Fás find ways to encourage carers into training and return-to-work programmes;
carers be adequately recompensed, reflecting the value of the work they do;
inequities in the Carer's Benefit and Carer's Allowance payments be removed;
availability of home and community care services to people who need care be increased to meet demand; and
those organisations representing carers participate fully in shaping the healthcare reform agenda.
