Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion, which covers a wide range of services, needs and desires of carers. I agree with much of the motion. Regardless of what happened in the budget, this area needs serious investigation. The motion refers to designing a tailor-made plan for each individual who needs care, help and support.

"Design a service" are the actual words used. We need to design a plan for each person.

We must look at the overall spend on caring for people with disabilities, the elderly and people with various ailments. We can do more with the available money. The people who need the money spent on them, around them, with them and on their carers could get more from the State without an increase in the spend. There are many areas where we could reform and rearrange how we spend. We must look at all the budgets and not pit one Department against another. Even within Departments community care vies with other care budgets, for example.

I have worked in the accounts end of the old health boards and I have seen all the categories, cost centres and places where money is spent. There is not much joined-up thinking across those sectors. That is the reform the Government must tackle. Everyone must become involved in that reform.

In a debate on another issue last week, I said we need to use our imagination but we also need to hear from everyone in the service how things can be done better. Money is going to waste and some systems are not right.

I will focus on a number of key areas. At the time of the budget some carers came to my office to protest. I met 15 or 16 carers, along with 15 or 16 activists from Sinn Féin who joined in for political reasons. It is a pity they were there, but that is what they do. Nevertheless, we had a chance to discuss the issue at length with the carers. Most of them had been to my office over the years. Whether I am in Opposition or in Government I recognise what they do for the country and for their loved ones. We could never pay them enough. Thousands would not be enough for the work they do. Most of them talked to me, not so much about money as about services for their loved ones.

The majority of people who have contacted me on this issue, and I have spoken to hundreds, are people with disabilities and their carers. I accept that care for the elderly is vital and their carers also need the respite grant. The majority who are affected, however, are people who care for children, sometimes adult children, and loved ones who have a disability. They need the respite care grant, the domiciliary care grant and all the other payments purely to add to the pot to buy extra for the person they are caring for. The respite grant is no longer used solely to provide a break for the carer. It now provides the means to buy extra services. Our discussion was about getting services for their loves ones, getting more help, more hours tuition for a child with autism, physiotherapy or swimming lessons. Respite has become a much broader area.

This convinces me even more that me must look at the overall package. There is a duty on all of us, even with tough budgets, to find ways to get people the services they need. Respite care needs to be dealt with through community services and by the HSE, which does provide respite care for some but not everyone. We must completely rethink how we do this, and do it very fast. I accept that this cut is very harsh on people and will put them under great difficulty, but we can move fast to close the gap. I gave a commitment to the people who came to my office that I will work on this issue and that we will rearrange how we do things to make up the difference in the money.

Respite has become expensive in the last number of years, and it should not be so. The overall package and services are what concern people.

We do not listen sufficiently to parents and carers. Not enough common sense is built into our systems and this has been building up over a long number of years. We must bring back common sense. It is common sense to make a decision about carer's allowance, not in one or two years, but in a reasonable timeframe. Do we make decisions on domiciliary care allowance in a reasonable timeframe? I believe 12 weeks is the target. That may not be realistic in the current climate but two years is not good enough. A year and six months is not good enough either. We must come up with a solution.

There are plenty of staff working in the public sector who could be switched over to the areas where there are backlogs, whether in medical cards, domiciliary care allowance, carer's allowance or whatever. It is not good enough that carers, who have enough problems and enough to do with their time, should have to worry and spend time chasing paperwork and filling in forms to get the help they need.

I said when I was in opposition and I say now that we must provide a single place where a carer can go to find services. A carer of a child with a disability should be able to go to one place and access all the services and help that is needed. That place should fight for carers. We have done this for small businesses. We have provided a single place that will deal with nearly 50 or 60 licences and requirements. The same needs to be done for people who need State help to raise and mind their loved ones.

We have a duty to do more. It is not just about money. It is about reforming our systems and getting them right. I hope this debate will feed into that. We will get there if we continue to focus on this issue.

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