Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Our guests are very welcome. It is a great education when we get to hear from family carers. I am not a family carer and do not have the lived experience so these conversations are beneficial. It a means of articulating what we want to advocate.

Deputy Cairns spoke about a few issues I was going to address in my questioning. We are pulling back. Family carers need support to deal with the new era into which we are moving. We all want to empower and support our loved ones with disabilities. I am hearing that carers are disempowered because they have not been given guidance or knowledge as to how, in practical steps, to work through the legislation. They were given a heavy piece of legislation. All of us who worked on it during pre-legislative scrutiny struggled with it. I was changing my mind or going from one thing to another almost every day. It is a lot to expect of family carers when they are already juggling so much. Ms Johnstone has said she is the financial manager for her household and is dealing with invoices.

She is dealing with so much. We are asking an awful lot of family carers without providing practical supports. I have had meetings with CHO 8 on how it will work through all of this. It is almost waiting as it can only plan for so much because then it is in the hands of the courts. It can only work through so many of the situations or scenarios that it knows about because the litigation could be overturned or change and the precedent could change. I do not have a question apart from asking what the committee can do. We are doing an injustice to carers and to those who are being cared for if we do not empower carers to deliver the proper will and preference for which we all advocate and guide the carers in how to derive that will and preference as a supporter of the decision. What supports do we need? What answers do we need? The carers clearly need a meeting with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. Perhaps we can write a letter through the Chair to request that meeting. We need a guide and we do not have one. Do the witnesses have other fears? Are there definite requests that we can make? We do not yet know the legal or litigation answers.