CARERS HAVE pleaded with TDs and Senators to fight for them as the Government considers the cuts to be made in the supplementary budget.
The Carers’ Association held briefings for TDs and Senators yesterday to outline proposals that would improve the lives of carers while not increasing costs on the exchequer.
This follows a Government decision to scrap the long-promised National Carers’ Strategy, because of the economic downturn. Carers had hoped the strategy would have set out a range of measures to make life easier for more than 160,000 people who care for family members. Some 40,000 people are full-time carers.
The cost-neutral proposals presented by the Carers’ Association yesterday include the introduction of quality standards in community and home care services and a carer-awareness training programme for HSE and Government department staff who deal with carers.
Carers are calling for a pilot project within the primary school curriculum which would focus on carers, and on the needs of young carers in particular. They are looking for a needs assessment model for all carers, which would be rolled out on a pilot basis through existing resources. Other proposals include health promotion, information packs and a website for carers.
The Carers’ Association also asks that people who return from abroad to care for a sick relative should be exempted from the habitual residency clause. Under this clause, if someone has not lived in Ireland in the past three years, they are not eligible for payments such as the carer’s allowance. This would involve “minimal cost” the association said.
Yesterday’s briefings heard from John Hobbs, who cares for his wife Esther who has Alzheimer’s disease. “I’m thinking about putting her in a home,” he said. “But the thing about it is, I know myself if she went from me, within two weeks she could be gone because it would break her heart.” The couple have been married for 50 years.
Marie Magennis from Beaumont, Dublin became emotional as she told how she had been caring for her husband David, who has Parkinson’s disease, for 35 years. “I’m pleading not to take the carer’s allowance from us,” she said. “It’s absolutely disgusting the way people are treated in this country. My husband suffers from cold all the time. Our gas bill was €465, the electricity, €261,” she said. Her €220 carer’s allowance wouldn’t even cover the gas bill, she said.
Maria Calasa, who cares for her 82-year-old father, estimated that carers were paid 76 cent an hour for their 24-hour-a-day job. “Please don’t take away the 76 cents an hour. It’s ludicrous.” She said the cleaning staff who worked for Government Ministers were probably better paid than carers. “I need someone in the Government to say . . . I’m going to be a hero for carers and I’m going to speak out for them.”
Frank Goodwin, chairman of the Carers’ Association, warned that demands on carers would increase because the number of people aged over 65 years was set to increase by 80 per cent by 2025.
“A rapidly growing older population as well as new nursing home regulations will have a very serious impact on the level of care required in Ireland,” he said.
“Following the disgraceful decision not to publish the long fought for National Carers’ Strategy, we are asking Government not to cut essential social welfare supports for family carers.”
He said family carers provided more than three million hours of care in the home every week and saved the State at least €2.5 billion a year. For that seven-day a week job, they received a couple of euro more than people receiving unemployment benefit, he said.
