Dr. Laura O'Philbin:

As we know, caring can be very rewarding and fulfilling but it can also be very stressful, as Deputy Durkan mentioned. The national carers' strategy states that family carers should be supported to maintain their own health and well-being. We produced a research paper last year entitled The Experience of Dementia in Ireland: A Snapshot in Time. It would be remiss of me not to highlight the huge personal struggles that both people living with dementia and family carers are facing. Their mental health is really poor. People are dealing with stress, anxiety, burnout and worry about the future. Of course, there are people out there who are living well but there are also people who are struggling. We have those two cohorts.

People with dementia need psychological support to come to terms with their diagnosis and deal with their anxiety about the future. Family carers need that support in the same way. We found that one of the biggest challenges for people in being able to continue their caring role is juggling their work and other parts of their life with caring, which includes having to ring the public health nurse to find supports and services. Carers' lives change dramatically. We found that 43% of carers reported below average mental health, with 16% reporting it as poor. A total of 31% of people with dementia rated their mental health as poor, with 32% rating it as fair.

I have been working in dementia research for a long time. A lot of things people said to me when we were collecting the data over the phone will stick with me for a long time. It is really clear that people are struggling. Provision in this area stands out as a critical support gap, as outlined in our pre-budget submissions. Family Carers Ireland provides counselling services but, as far as I am aware, they are consistently oversubscribed. People with dementia need really specific communication strategies and tools. It is brilliant that our organisation is able to pilot some kinds of psychotherapeutic supports specifically for people living with dementia. Research internationally shows that the optimal mix of supporting family carers of people living with dementia is psychotherapeutic support plus family carer education. Mr. Heffernan spoke about our family carer training. A mix of those provisions is really important in supporting people.