Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very important motion. I also thank the carers in our State who have done an amazing job of looking after their loved ones, year in and year out for long periods. My sister gave 20 years of her life to looking after my mother, and she did it 24/7 without question. It is not an easy thing to do. All of the statistics show that making this sacrifice comes at a high price in a person's life.

In dealing with families and people who are challenged mentally or physically, people who have visual and auditory challenges and those who become old, the legacy of the State is the tradition of outsourcing, which is disgraceful.

Some people believe outsourcing is a relatively new process that capitalist societies do but the Irish State has been brilliant at it since its foundation. In the past, it outsourced to charities attached to religious institutions and the legacy of that is section 38 and section 39 workers, many of whom also are not paid properly or are not in receipt of decent pensions.

That outsourcing has also been to the family. The family in Ireland has a strong tradition and culture but it comes at the high price of the State ignoring carers. As has been said already, who is going to care for the carers? That is why we should not only pass this motion but we should pursue every aspect of it with vigour over the next few years in order to ensure that carers get the justice they deserve. Carers often work 24-7. They get a respite payment annually but many of them are not able to do much with it, especially since cutbacks in respite have been prevalent, particularly in HSE settings, in recent years. We ran three or four campaigns in the past ten years to stop respite wards in Cherry Orchard Hospital being closed. We won some of them but we lost others. That has meant a reduction in the availability of respite beds to people in our communities who do a tremendous job of looking after the elderly, the frail, the disabled and those who are challenged or suffering from dementia at home.

The savings to the State resulting from people being cared for at home are estimated in one record at €10 billion a year and in another at €20 billion a year. The CSO reckons there are more than 500,000 carers, not all of them in receipt of benefits or allowances. In a country of 4.5 million people, we are talking about one in eight or one in nine members of the population, from the age of 15 upwards, engaged in home caring. This tells me that the Government should begin to recognise the very valuable contribution of that cohort of people no matter who they are or where they are. Two in three provide 100 hours' care a week. One in four provide 50 hours a week without any allowance or benefit. One in three have been diagnosed with depression, four out of ten with anxiety, two thirds suffer with their own physical ill-health and two out of three say their health has suffered as a result of caring for their loved ones. Access to routine supports have been seriously reduced since austerity began in 2009. Many of them do not receive home help or training in how to shower somebody, move them in the bed, lift them, carry them from their wheelchair into the bed or to toilet facilities. That is a complete neglect of those people who do an amazing job.

There is a massive heap of issues that have to be addressed. Like others, I want to read what Donna, who is aged 34, has to say about caring for her husband who has had multiple sclerosis for the past three years. She asked me to do that. She stated:

I have sat and watched over the last 12 months as profits from airlines and travel have been prioritized over my life and everybody else's in this country. I have not received [any] extra money for PPE, sanitizer, [extra] electricity for being in the house ... I have done my bit, I have singlehandedly, without any home help, looked after my husband for the last 3 years.

What does the Government tell carers? It tells them that they can go to hell and look after themselves.

We have to ensure that issues such as the supports that are available, the training that should be available, an increase in the payment for a job that is saving this State billions of euro a year and an assurance that every single one of those people will be entitled to a proper pension are dealt with. Nobody really understands until they do the job or have somebody close to them doing it what enormous sacrifices carers make. They are completely undervalued. We need to care for our carers.

See this speech in context