Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We support the Bill. We support providing carers with access to medical cards but it is peanuts compared with the extent of unpaid labour of the estimated 360,000 carers, as Deputy Penrose said. For that reason we support both the amendments that seek to widen access and seek to widen what carers would be entitled to. All of it pales into insignificance compared with the unpaid labour of care, of social reproduction, of those who primarily - two thirds - are women. The 360,000 carers represent 10% of the adult population and that figure is only going one way. It is expected to be 20% of the population by 2030 according to Family Carers Ireland.

Care Alliance Ireland produced an estimate of the unpaid labour of those carers based on paying them the living wage of close to €12 an hour. It estimated the total saving on behalf of the State is €10 billion a year. That is an incredible amount of free labour done by people caring for either elderly relatives or young relatives - children, grandchildren etc. As I mentioned it is feminised with two thirds of carers being women. That increases to over 70% in the 50-plus category. The other feature is that the age profile of carers is getting older with a 50% increase in the number of older carers since 2006.

The way carers are treated appallingly relates directly to cutbacks and the absence of investment over the past ten years or so in the context of an increasing need for carers. It also relates to a broader societal issue. The structure of capitalism is such that it relies on a huge amount of free labour taking place which is overwhelmingly done by women. The impact on carers' lives, financially, emotionally and health-wise is obviously immense. In Ireland 66% of carers have said they struggle to make ends meet. One third of carers still keep a job outside their role as a carer to maintain themselves financially despite the fact that the average hours worked by a carer in Ireland is 44.6 hours a week. They are doing a full-time job or more caring and then they need to work outside of that to simply survive for themselves and possibly for the person for whom they are caring. In many cases it is not 44.5 hours a week; in reality it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The impact of that is immense.

Apart from the financial strain on people working for free, 50% report feeling emotionally, physically and mentally drained from the role and pressure of being a carer. Over half reported physical injury, usually to their back, and another half reported mental health problems due to the role and stresses related to it. In the context of a society that does not provide appropriate public care, people wonder about what will happen to the people they care for and love. They wonder if they die or get sick, who will look after the people they are caring for. As a result, 27% of carers have a stress level of seven or higher on the care-giver strain index.

We support the Bill. We will seek to strengthen the Bill by supporting both of the amendments on Committee Stage. There is a much bigger and more fundamental change needed here in how care is provided in our society and an end to the reliance on unpaid labour, generally of family members. We need increased supports for home helps as part of a national health service. We need more quality residential facilities. We need more home help provided as part of a properly funded public service. We need full financial support for those who have to be carers. They need to be paid a living wage. We need to make funding available for home adaptations. We need support for minority care givers; 12% of carers do not speak English, which affects their ability to access the services available to them or which are available in theory to them. We need support for Traveller caregivers and LGBTQ+ caregivers and so on. Fundamentally, we need an end to the direction of travel of our health service towards privatisation. We need the development of a proper national health service within which the role of carers is properly resourced, publicly provided wherever possible and, where not possible, that carers are appropriately remunerated for the jobs they do.

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