Health: Most carers were unpaid workers in what could only be called the voluntary health sector, Mr Ciarán Lynch, a Cork City Council candidate, told the conference.
He said that the 120,000 carers in the Republic were saving the State over €1.5 billion in health care expenditure.
"In Cork alone, there are over 10,000 carers. The majority of them provide care for a family member and they are not rewarded for the vast sums of money they save this State."
Outlining a carer's lifestyle, he said: "She is on duty, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Her work goes largely unnoticed and she does it anyway. If she is lucky enough to be paid for her work, she will receive less than the minimum wage. Any payment she does receive will be means-tested."
Mr Donal Barry, a Kerry County Council candidate, said that house prices in the county had increased by 125 per cent in the past five years.
"In the 1950s and '60s, emigration bled my constituency of its finest young people. We sent them away because there was no work, no wealth and no opportunity.
"We are still hunting our young people out of the rural landscape and into the future village slums of 20 years' time."
Planning structures were such that the countryside was empty, while towns and villages were over-populated, with an absence of amenities, said Mr Barry.
Ms Karen O'Loughlin, a Limerick City Council candidate, criticised the reduction in the childcare element of the back-to-education allowance.
"This is ludicrous at a time when participation rates and demand for adult education is increasing. In Limerick this year, only half of the participants eligible to start education to the scheme were able to do so because the childcare facility is no longer available."
