Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ireland's 161,000 family carers play a vital role in our health and community care sectors. Carers contribute about €11 million every day, providing 900,000 hours of care daily and saving the State more than €4.7 billion every year. The recent 2011 census found we have a 16% increase in the number of carers since 2006. They put in an estimated 3.5 million hours every week, saving the State €2.1 billion per annum.

We all know it is about much more than just that. They are our invisible army. I try to be positive most of the time but I found it a little disingenuous of some members of the Opposition to present themselves as having a monopoly on caring. There is not a person in the House who is not affected in some way, through someone they know, love or care about, by the issues that have been raised recently by the budget cuts.

We must remember it was the previous Government that scrapped the National Carers' Strategy in 2009. In July of this year, the current Government kept its commitment and published the National Carers' Strategy, signalling the Government's commitment to recognising and respecting carers as key care partners and responding to their needs across a number of policy areas. This strategy complements reforms occurring or being considered in community care across aged care, disability, mental health, primary health care and our hospital systems. The Carers Association welcomed the strategy as an important first step and noted that this is the first time a Government has recognised that carers are key players and providers in our health system.

The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, said recently that she hopes carers will now be recognised, supported and empowered. The strategy says the value and contribution of carers should be recognised and their inclusion in decisions relating to the person they are caring for should be promoted.

Caring touches, or will touch, every family in Ireland. I would like sufficient supports to be in place to enable carers to have lives of their own alongside caring. Many carers feel strongly about their contribution to society, which they feel is still underestimated and unrecognised. Instead of being supported, they often find their needs are overlooked, they have to fight go get support or that the available supports are insufficient or of poor quality. Carers say caring can be rewarding, giving relatives the best care possible, giving back to relatives and close friends who provided care themselves, and giving them a strong sense of family, community and friendship.

The cost to them, however, is considerable. One in five carers gives up work to care. Carers are twice as likely to suffer from ill-health and many struggle to make ends meet. We have a duty to support our carers in managing their physical, mental and emotional health, as well as their well-being. Through the provision of adequate information, training and services, they should be empowered to participate as fully as possible in economic and social life.

This means that, as a society, we need to think differently about how care is provided and how we support families who decide to provide that care. Just as increased participation of women in the labour market led to more and better provision of child care, so care services should and must be seen as an enabler as our population ages.

The Government has pledged to strengthen awareness of the role of carers and recognise their needs through income supports. The strategy also commits to supporting the development of supports and services and to protecting the physical, mental and emotional well-being of carers. It aims to provide better training and access to the labour market for carers and give them access to respite breaks.

The role of care organisations and the voluntary sector is universally highly praised. We need to recognise the importance of building the capacity of the voluntary sector and the potential benefits of care representative organisations, combining their efforts to ensure that views of carers are communicated more effectively at a national level.

A major challenge for the future is how to enable people to balance care and their other responsibilities, including work. There is an urgent need to increase awareness among employers and the representative bodies of the contributions made by carers. Caring is an expression of care, respect and affection for another person and, as such, the true value of care, and the support provided by carers, cannot be fully, objectively quantified. I pay tribute to the invisible army of carers, who day in, day out sacrifice their lives to support their loved ones. They are special people and they deserve our support to ensure they feel valued and supported in managing their caring responsibilities with confidence and are empowered to have their own lives outside of the care they give.

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