Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this most important issue. Each year carers through their voluntary work in the home save the State in excess of €2.5 billion. The refusal of the Government to publish a national carers' strategy represents a major U-turn and will be a bitter pill for thousands of families to swallow. The publication of the carers strategy was an integral element of the Towards 2016 agreement signed by the Government and the social partners. However, the decision to bin the promise was made by the Government alone.

As an active member of the Cork Family Carers Forum in Cork city, I am furious at the refusal to implement the strategy. There are 19,000 families in Cork city and county who will be listening to the Minister's response with great interest. They have been listening since last January when the Minister first flew a kite in The Sunday Business Post suggesting carers were to come under attack. This was not about monetary commitments which carers were seeking. It was about looking for acknowledgement of the work they do 365 days a year, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The strategy was to recognise the importance of that work and to put some sort of benchmark in our social programme that would recognise the value of that work.

The carers and their representatives went to exorbitant and significant levels to provide submissions on this report, only to be told that those submissions are now in the bin in the Minister's office. In the boom times, carers waited a long time to eventually get someone recognition and monetary gain for the work they do, yet at the first sign of a turnaround in the economy it seems they will be the first to suffer. Assurances from the Government that they will work with representative groups to ensure the delivery of services in the most effective manner is tokenism at best. It is a shame on the Government and on the Minister that she comes to the House today having abandoned what is the most significant aspect of community care in this country, one which is supported in the main by a voluntary group, to tell us that this programme is no longer being considered.

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