Mr. Damien Douglas:

I thank Deputy Kerrane for her contribution. On pensions, it is very important because it is this kind of looking forward to a sense of having some sort of assurance of income. Most carers have had to give up work. They have lost their jobs and cannot work. They have already lost entitlement to pension from those works, even those in the public health service, as my wife and I were. The whole career has gone. Sometimes you sit back and dream about what you do when you retire because you will have your pension, lump sum and all that. Most families have lost that altogether, never mind the loss for their children. It is like a bereavement in a sense, because your children are not the children you thought you would have. You love them hugely but the dreams you had for them going off are not there because, to put it bluntly, you are wiping their nappies at 27 years of age, rather than sending them off to have their own children, get married and have a life. You have given up an awful lot of your pension entitlements and everything else. You may get something later on. There are huge losses that most families are very aware of, but people outside caring are not aware of them. That has to be said. It is not just the loss of the physical money here and now, it is the loss of the prospective money people would have had because they have sacrificed their careers to look after their children or the families that they love so dearly. Most of us do it willingly but also because there is nobody else to do it. If they go into the care of the State, what will happen? In most cases, the State cannot take them now. If it does, it is at far more cost than it costs us to do it. As the ladies have said, we are penalised. We have all had reviews and we have all been reduced. Yet, we are expected to keep smiling and keep doing it. It does not make sense and it is not fair. It really is not fair.