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

I thank Deputy Harkin and her group for putting forward this important motion. I hope that given that we have set up an all-party committee on the role of carers, with a focus on young carers, this year and beyond we will begin to change the attitude and climate in this country towards the important role of caring for people in the family and at home. The statistics are startling and I want to say that the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach made a comment at a recent presentation in the audiovisual room by young people on the level of caring that they do. She was genuinely moved to tears when hearing the live testimony of the young people on how their lives are affected and what sort of day-to-day routine they carry out by caring for people. As the motion states: "some 67,000 young people in the 10-17 year age group provide regular unpaid care". I asked them afterwards if they were aware of the number of young people who provide care to parents, guardians or loved ones because of addiction. I have worked with groups in my community that provide support for people living with addiction and I have seen young people who pick up the pieces for their siblings, parents and loved ones because addiction has rendered them incapable of doing so. They said they have to research that. That matter is not taken into account in those figures so the figures would soar if it was.

The scandal is that the amount of money the State saves by using the carer's allowance scheme is so incredibly high, an estimated €20 billion per year. It cannot really be measured just in terms of money, but it is an incredibly high figure and yet we only have approximately 135,000 people on carer's allowance. A lot of the reason for that is the means testing and the limitations of that. The way the means test is done limits the ability of carers to access the carer's allowance. The carer's allowance is a wonderful idea and it helps people to survive through what are very tough years. I acted as a carer for my mother for about six years and I worked for about ten hours per week as well during that time. Those ten hours were leisure hours really because I was getting away from the stress and strain of constantly being on call and being aware and alert to somebody else's need rather than being focused on something I could give value to. I say that because it is no surprise at all that the vast majority of carers are women and girls. That stems from a society that has disrespected women and put them in a category of providing a specific role. It is a misogynist and sexist view of women and girls but it has penetrated very deeply into our system and that is reflected when you look at the statistics on carers, who does it, how much they get paid and how they are disregarded etc.

It is important in debating this motion that we look at things like the income disregard, which has to increase. It has been kept at a capped level for many years since the banking collapse and it did not begin to recover until 2021. We have to address that. It is not surprising that carers are so badly paid because that puts women and girls into the category of low pay, which is the reality when you look beneath the statistics of everything that happens in this country.

One does not just care for the person one lives with out of a sense of having to clean up after them, look after them or give them their medication. It stems from love, affection and genuine loyalty. That is something that we think probably should not be rewarded in pounds, shillings and pence but when you are giving up your time, life and energy to make sure that person stays comfortable, safe and looked after, without being in an institution, that is a really important function. It is great that we are so good at that in this country but we need to be good at recognising the value of it and rewarding it properly. On the pension scheme, the points that have been made by others are really relevant. We cannot allow people to go into their retirement years and be forgotten about, just because they provided a role that was undervalued in the first place by the State.

There is an interesting way of looking at how we come out of the climate change catastrophe we are facing. There is an argument for us to look at the way we produce goods and at the amount of goods we produce and consume. If we were to have a democratically planned society that said we do not need to produce that much stuff and that we need to cut back on production it could help to reduce our emissions and the burning of greenhouse gasses. The alternative to that is interesting and the slogan for it is for a society of care and repair. It basically means that we shift our focus in society from profit and production towards looking at the human aspects of how we treat society and conduct ourselves. The carers and the role they play fall into a model for the sort of care and repair society we need. Therefore, we should value them financially, but wholly and statistically as well, and see them and their future and present as being really important for this State. The Government needs to carry out the functions that are in the motion and People Before Profit will be supporting it.

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