Ms Rosaleen Doonan:

People can avail of three days of respite. I cannot describe what it means to the committee. We have sent more than 100 people. I have a stack of cards from them. It made a difference to them and it makes a difference to the economy. If one wants to be black and white about it, one must look at that. We sent people there who were at burnout stage. Following respite, they are no longer burned out, they no longer need a residential place and they are prepared to continue with care at home, thus saving the State huge amounts of money. The financial and economic rationale for looking after carers is a no-brainer. It is the way to go. I am involved at the front line, all day, every day.

One Friday morning when I was in the office I got a telephone call from a man who was distressed. I did not know what was wrong. I usually ask people for their name first but he would not give me his name. The reason he was telephoning me was to tell me that he could no longer care for his mother. He was providing full-on personal care for her but he was giving it up. For a moment I did not know what he was telling me but he wanted us to be able to support his mother when he was gone. I was on the telephone to him for an hour. I will never forget the call. He was really telling me he had decided to end his life. He was going to commit suicide. He had it planned. He was going to Galway. I was on the other end of the telephone. I did not know who he was or where he was from. I tried to elicit the information from him. To make a long story short, I had to figure out where he was. I got on to the public health nurses. I had other people on the telephone checking to see whether he was a client of theirs. One person recognised who it could be and got to him while I was still on the telephone to him. We got him into De Exeter House. He was there for one month. He came out of there and he was perfect. We got supports in to help him. He is still caring for his mother. That is the reality. That is what it is like out there. That should never have happened. It need not have happened.

The man was 53 years of age and his mother was 84 or 85. If that man got the supports he needed the situation would not have arisen. Perhaps he did not ask for them. Sometimes people do not ask for them. One needs to know who those people are. If the man in that case had got the supports in time I would not have had that telephone call. They are the things one does not forget. It is very easy to be isolated from such circumstances when one is not in the business. What did I know about the situation before I got involved with the Carers Association? I was lucky. Those considerations did not come into my sphere of life but now I am acutely aware of them and I know for sure that they will affect me some day. I definitely know that I am either going to be cared for or I will be caring for someone.