Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I rise to support this very good amendment. As previous speakers said, it does not demand anything, albeit if anyone could or should make demands, it is the carers of Ireland. They are the unseen heroes. However, the amendment does not do that but is instead a carefully couched proposal for a timely review to consider the impediments to carers seeking to enter or return to the job market, including to do part-time work. Indeed, people on social welfare should be allowed to some bit of light work. Last week, the annual awards ceremony of Family Carers Ireland was held in Dublin. I attended the Tipperary awards and we had a contestant at last week's awards from the O'Keeffe family. I salute Family Carers Ireland and Catherine Cox as well as the regional manager for Carers Ireland in my area, Councillor Richie Molloy, who is also a colleague. They do tremendous work.

As Deputies, people trying to access carer's allowance come to us regularly but we cannot do much to help them. We try and we engage, but the process is too slow. The Minister knows that. There are too many regulations and too much ruaile buaile. As Deputy Penrose said, someone who qualifies medically should qualify under the means test unless he or she is a millionaire. The means test is so cruel and short-sighted because it is blind to the huge savings made in the health system, in particular. Accident and emergency queues are out the door and step-down facilities are non-existent. There have been cutbacks after cutbacks. The weekend respite which used to be available from district hospitals like St. Patrick's in Cashel is almost impossible to get now.

The carer may be a spouse, a brother or a sister. I remind Deputy Bríd Smith that many men do it well. I had a frightening reply to a parliamentary question recently which set out the number of children who provide care. Young boys and girls in their teenage years should be at school during the day and after school they should be allowed to interact with their families and engage in sport and other social activities. They should have fulfilling childhoods, engaging with the world and being out with their friends rather than bearing an onerous burden. It is great for them to help. It is a wonderful experience and a good grounding in life to understand people who get ill. However, it becomes very punitive when the child is a carer.

I do not have the figures with me but it is quite shocking and staggering to see the amount of people who are in this situation and it should be looked at.

This amendment asks the Government to look at that and to lay the results before the joint committee. It is more than timely with the large budget that is going into health and with fewer outcomes every year. There are many good outcomes in health but if older people do not have someone to advocate for them, they are abandoned and even with advocates it is not easy.

Care Alliance Ireland put on a lot of training and valuable further education and training awards council, FETAC, courses of different grades for people who are caring. It is a supportive organisation and I attend as many of their coffee mornings as I can on issues such as that. Those involved love for people to listen to them because they do this out of love and the goodness of their hearts to help their siblings, loved ones and parents and it can engross their whole life so it is important that they get respite and that the person who they are caring for gets respite. It is important that they have a chance to go out for an hour or so to engage with others and to share the different ideas they have and their good and bad news. A natter, a chat and an engagement break the monotony. The area of getting access carers is nearly impossible. As others have said, qualification should be on medical grounds and means testing is a cruel weapon in this regard. Carers themselves might be pensioners or be on social welfare and their means might not be wonderful anyway so why do we have to keep them waiting for 12 weeks or 4 months with so many back and forth exchanges because it is so difficult and obstructive a process for them? It is way too bureaucratic.

Often times a carer will just give up the ghost and do it alone quietly and unknown with no allowance and no help because they cannot cope with the system and the bureaucratic regulations and the obstacles that are put in their way. This request for a root and branch review and to bring that review back to the committee to deal with it is over time. It is timely but it is over due because people should get it. Without the carers we would be a much poorer society. Ní neart go cur le chéile is the old proverb that I like and they do it, they put their shoulder to the wheel and keep it there 24/7. It was mentioned that if we were to pay them, even when they get the carer's allowance, they are there night and day, they are on call and they are expected to be on call. That bond is there but the reassurance is also there that they can be called by the person they are caring for 24/7. They are earning less than €2 per hour if they work 168 hours per week. It is criminal.

We give out about people not paying the minimum wage and having proper statutory wages but this is something that we are getting. It is a great process that we have in our nation and it is a wonderful culture to foster, but why do we not show respect for it, support them and make it less onerous and cumbersome to try to avail of this and not have them looking over their shoulders? We should allow them to keep their finger in the job market so that when their loved one passes on they will not have the bigger void of unemployment and getting back into the job market after they have been caring for their loved one 24/7. We need to have a root and branch examination and I wholeheartedly support this amendment.

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