Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an nGrúpa Réigiúnach as ucht an rún seo a chur os comhair na Dála. Tá na figiúirí leagtha amach go soiléir. Níl i gceist ach rud bunúsach, is é sin, fáil réidh leis an tástáil acmhainne ó thaobh cúramóirí de. Tá an ceart iomlán aige agus aontaím leis. I thank the Regional Group for putting this motion before the Dáil.

Every year since I was first elected, I have argued in advance of every budget for a value to be put on the unpaid work of carers, who are predominantly women. When we look at the figure we have been given repeatedly, of €20 billion in savings to the State, that in itself should direct the Government's minds to look at this. If anything captures, in the most horrific way, the failure of neoliberalism and the free market, this is it. It has made caring into a product to be bought and sold, with absolutely no sympathy or feelings around it. The census of 2022 showed the number of people providing unpaid care had increased by more than 50%. Approximately 6% of the population identified as unpaid carers, and unpaid care is provided predominantly by women, of course.

I thank Family Carers Ireland, as usual, for the second survey it undertook. It looked at the savings to the State and predicted that by 2030, one in five adults will be a carer. A total of 52% of the people who responded were living in a household with a gross income of less than €30,000, struggling to make ends meet, struggling psychologically and struggling to pay their rent or their mortgage. Last week, the Dáil endorsed, although I did not, a pension scheme that will take an additional €40 a week out of the pocket of anyone earning more than €20,000.

Of course, we are awaiting the Supreme Court judgment in the case of a woman who is struggling to mind her son with a range of disability and who has had to go to the High Court, where the case was rejected, and now to the Supreme Court to try to make sense of the article in the Constitution that states no woman shall be obliged to work outside the home. Instead of dealing with that and changing the reference to "parent", the Government foolishly went ahead with a referendum and told the people what was best. If the Government were seriously interested and if I were to accept its bona fides, the very thing it should do is accept this motion and put a timeline with a date on the high-level working group that has been requested, because that would go some way towards proving the Government’s bona fides, rather than have this woman struggle with all the costs and effort in the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, I am not even sure whether it is the right case, but I hope the Supreme Court will take the opportunity to look at that article and to interpret it in a 21st century way.

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