The Carers Association has complained about a ban preventing the launch of its pre-budget submission in Leinster House as in previous years.
The association normally presents the document in the Oireachtas audio-visual room but it says this is no longer possible since a ban preventing access to civil and voluntary groups was implemented last year.
“The association and family carers feel aggrieved at this move as we believe that the on-site briefing facility of the AV room at Leinster House was a civil society space that should have been preserved and protected.”
The launch goes ahead this morning in nearby Buswells Hotel.
This is the first time in many years that The Carers Association will not present their submission in The Oireachtas AudioVisual Room of the Dáil following changes last year that now prevents access to civil and voluntary groups.
The submission urges the Government to recognise the home as a vital centre of care and calls on ministers to ease the burden for carers in the coming Budget.
Among its recommendations are:
- the Government should acknowledge family carers as an exceptional group within the Department of Social Protection
- legislation to ensure a statutory entitlement to homecare community services
- the provision of adequate supports for carers caring for those with mental health illness
- the restoration of cuts applied to the respite care grant and household benefits package.
- the €100 water allowance should apply to all full-time carers regardless of whether they are in receipt of the household benefit package
- an extension of local property tax exemptions to include households where high level care is provided
The association says carers have been hit hard by changes to the housing adaptation grant for people with a disability as well as cuts to the housing aid for older people and the mobility aid grants.
They are facing further hardship through increased household charges and lack of resources on the ground.
“At a time when there are already huge demands on family carers, such cuts are devastating for the 187,000 people who are a part of Ireland’s unseen workforce,” says Catherine Cox, head of communications with association.
“While the Carers Association has welcomed Government’s shift in policy from institutional/ hospital care to care in the community and in the home, this transfer cannot be achieved by simply dumping the responsibility of care onto the shoulders of family carers without proper ‘transfer of care’ protocols. In the absence of a statutory entitlement to home care services the basic supports necessary to sustain people with high dependency care needs in the home must be provided prior to the movement of a patient from a hospital or institutional care to their homes. Family Carers have played their part in facilitating this shift in policy and we are calling on the Government to do the same. The bridge between the rhetoric and reality must be crossed to ensure one of Ireland’s must vulnerable section of society are afforded the necessary supports and entitlements.”