Ms Karen O'Mahony:

The problem with carers is that being a carer should be identified as that person's job. It should not be the case that the parent is doing a job on top of that. Being a carer is a job and we should be significantly able to support that person who is giving up his or her job. We are one of those families; Jon had to give up his job years ago when Sean was not easy to manage. Could it not be looked at in a different way? The way that it is processed and the way applications are done is not fair. It should be identified that this is that person's role and that he or she is doing the job for the State during the day. It should be identified that he or she is the occupational therapist, the speech and language therapist and all of the other stuff during the day. There is a significant amount of caring with a child and that should be identified as being a role and a job.