Mr. Pat McLaughlin:

I thank the Chairman and members, in particular, those who were part of the all-party group on dementia.

I will focus on two evidence-based projects in which the Alzheimer Society of Ireland was involved. The first is the De-Stress study into 200 plus spousal carers. The following is a summary of the study's findings. In 2010, family carers and friends provided 81 million hours. That is approximately 50 % of the total amount of investment in dementia. Fifteen per cent of carers had given up their jobs to care for their spouses. Seventy-nine per cent of them stated they provided 81% to 100% of the care. On average, each of them had cared for his or her spouse for five years at the time of assessment. Only 50% of them had received any home help in the previous 30 days and the 50% who had, received an average of 34 hours in total in the previous 30 days - a little more than one hour a day to look after somebody with dementia. Only one-in-four had received family carer training. Seventy-one per cent of the carers had two or more health conditions at once, including arthritis, hypertension and diabetes, one third had fairly bad sleep quality and a further 9% reported very bad sleep quality. Approximately 37% of carers reported clinically significant depressive symptoms and 20% of carers themselves possibly had problems with cognitive functioning.

We would argue that if one wraps around services in the community, they can be a tremendous support to carers. This was mapped by the HSE and ourselves in 2018. One can see a very different range of services available, from 23 in CHO 3 to 44 in CHO 1. Looking at day centres nationally, only 41% of day centres operated on a five-day week basis. One might assume that means that people attend those day centres on five days, but they do not. Eighty per cent of people from our services attend one or two days a week. That is all they receive. Twenty per cent of those day centres operate only one day a week.

Wexford, Laois and Leitrim have no day care centre for persons with dementia. That denies nearly 2,000 people access to a service. In fact, taking three counties which are quite close, Leitrim has three services, Longford has six and Roscommon has ten. The point being made about the lottery certainly is true. Based on costings to the satisfaction of the HSE on the evidence of the number of services in an area and the minimum services there should be, €12 million would transform dementia services in this country. It would triple the services and provide a basic minimum level of service in each county in the country.

The challenge is significant. It is estimated that by 2046, the number of persons living with dementia in Ireland will rise threefold. That needs to be considered in the context that the number of people over 65 will increase twofold in that period of time.