Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not know whether the Minister has ever been a carer. I can only presume she has not, given the cuts she proposes to implement. My mother was a carer. I say "was", because she used to care for my father who passed away last August. She never went on a holiday while she was caring for him but used the respite care grant to subsidise my father's medical care so that we could keep him at home and grant him his final wish to die in peace with his family. If we had not used the grant to do that it is possible we would have had no choice other than to put him into a home. We would then have been unable to grant his dying wish.

The Minister stated, as did many other speakers in the Chamber, even today, there are alternatives to implementing this measure. A sum of €26 million is in question; every Deputy has provided the Minister with alternatives for sourcing it. For people like my mother and other carers, there is no alternative.

These people have no alternative. They either care for their loved ones or they do not do so. That is not a choice they can make. Those to whom I refer do not have the luxury of alternatives or of choosing not to care for their loved ones.

The Minister has the opportunity to make a different decision in respect of how to obtain the €26 million at issue here. I appeal to whatever sense of decency and humanity she may possess and I plead with her not to proceed with this proposal. The saving involved is €26 million out of total savings of €3.5 billion. These are just figures. My mother and the other 77,000 carers throughout the country are not interested in figures, they just want to be given the resources and to have the capability to do what is right by their loved ones. If the Minister proceeds with this cut, she may be denying some mother, father, son or daughter the ability to care for a loved one in their own home. In my book, that is just immoral. I appeal to the Minister not to proceed with what is proposed.

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