Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

The Minister is probably aware of and does not need me to point out that every week 161,000 carers are doing 3.5 million hours of work and saving the State more than €2 billion per annum. As the Minister stated in his response, I appreciate that widespread consultation is taking place within Departments and State agencies. However, my concern relates to consultation with the groups representing the carers themselves and this is a key part of the process. As a result of discussions with various people and as confirmed in the Minister's response, I am aware there is no representative from the carers group on the interdepartmental panel which is steering the strategy. Will the Minister say what level of consultation will be conducted with the relevant stakeholders? I appreciate the involvement of the State agencies but I am referring to groups such as the Carers Association, which is the representative body of the people dealing with this area first-hand.

The Minister will recall that this time last year public meetings were held around the country in every constituency prior to the election. Both the Minister and I saw for ourselves how representative the association is of its membership, considering the number of people who turned out to speak at those meetings. It is important that the process allows them to be much more involved. There is genuine concern that there has not been sufficient and appropriate consultation up to now and that a document will be presented as a fait accompli without consultation prior to the document. I ask the Minister to address this issue.

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