Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

-----which in a way reinforces one of the main points I want to make. There is no economic rationale or logic to justify making life worse for carers and consequently making life worse for those for whom they care, some of the most vulnerable people in our society. There are no words anyone in the House can say to do justice to the heroic and selfless work done by carers. The working week, the working day and the working year never end for a carer; they are on call 24-seven. They may not be always working, but they are on call all of these hours. If any other worker in any profession had to work the hours with the level of intensity which carers have to do and be on call at that level to carry out the type of work and service they provide to the people they love and to our society and economy, they would be paid multiples of what carers receive.

I say again nothing - no economic rationale, no talk of the troika and no talk of difficult decisions confronting the Government - can justify making life worse for those carers, and without question these cuts to the respite care grant and the absolutely unacceptable delays and refusals in terms of carer's allowance applications, delays which have trebled on the Government watch, are unconscionable and absolutely without justification. It is preposterous to speak about how generous the regime is. The generous ones are the carers. Nothing could be more generous or selfless than what they do for the people they care for and for our society and economy. They give back four or five times more to our economy than they take from it. The Minister of State should be down on his bended knees thanking them and not making life worse for them.

People in the Government say rightly that money is not the issue for carers, and it certainly is not because they would not be doing it if it was given the amount they receive, but the Government states somehow this would be compensated by the review of services. Please do not make us laugh or insult the intelligence of the carers. These services are being cut. Only weeks ago I brought dozens of parents of children with severe intellectual disabilities into the Gallery to point out to the Tánaiste that respite care day services and 24-seven services have been slashed. He stated in that engagement that he would meet with the service provider, they will look at it and sort it out. They got nothing. Those services were slashed, end of story. The Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly has put through a total of €780 million worth of health cuts in the budget and we do not even know what exactly they will mean, but they will definitely mean further cutbacks in day and respite services. Do not give us the economic claptrap. There is no justification for this. Even a small bit of extra income tax on those earning more than €100,000, cutting the pay of some of the top CEOs in semi-State companies or a wealth tax would have covered this very easily. It is appalling and the Government should back off from it.

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