Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for introducing this important motion. Every time we debate disabilities and carers in the Dáil, a structural issue arises. We have an issue like we had in UHL today, for example. The matter is the responsibility of the Minister for Health. If we are talking about taxation reform, the Minister for Finance is responsible, and so on, but responsibility for disabilities and carers cuts across a host of portfolios. We need the Minister for Health here in addition to the Minister for housing, the Minister for Social Protection and, of course, the Minister for disabilities. We have the Minister of State responsible for disabilities with us now. In response to my contribution and that of others, a cross-governmental approach is required. Increasingly, I am of the view that we need a senior Ministry for disabilities alone. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, who holds the portfolio at present, is also responsible for children, integration, and youth affairs. It is just too big a brief. There is a structural issue and this is another reason people with disabilities and carers continue to fall between the gaps. Despite the Minister of State responsible for disabilities being a strong advocate, we need a cross-governmental approach.

Last December, Family Carers Ireland released a scorecard that scored the progress made by the Government on delivering on commitments to family carers contained in the programme for Government. The results were damning. Of the 18 programme for Government commitments presented and voted on by family carers, four received a score of regressive, six received a score of no progress, five received a score of limited progress and only three received a score of good progress. None received a score of commitment achieved. With time running out in the term of the Government, which has another year to go at most, it would have been hoped that some commitments would have been achieved.

The work that approximately half a million carers do in this country is almost beyond measure, not just for the people they care for but also for the State itself. The annual replacement cost of the care provided by family carers is in the range of €20 billion – that is, €20 billion per year that the State is saving because carers step up and provide an average of 38.7 hours of care each week. Collectively, this amounts to 19 million hours of unpaid care every single week. Yet, as the scorecard of Family Carers Ireland shows, the Government's commitment to family carers is going backwards instead of forwards. We have not seen an update of the national carers' strategy, nor have we seen the provision for a statutory home care scheme. Both were promised by the Government. The lifetime of the Government is short and getting shorter and we need action now.

Let me give an example of why we need a statutory basis for the provision of home care. It concerns a constituent I dealt with recently who had to switch home care providers. She is a relatively young woman with many care needs that might not seem visible. Some days, she actually gets her hair brushed because she does not have the strength to brush it. She faces very genuine embarrassment in asking a new carer to brush her hair. That carer might be from a new company but it could be a different carer from the same company. This illustrates why we need to determine statutorily what home care companies should provide. This, of course, is on the private, paid-for side. Again, it is another example of how complex and broad the matter is. I acknowledge that the Minister of State present, Deputy Rabbitte, is not the Minister of State for this side of things, but what I have outlined illustrates the genuine impacts of a lack of progress and of not delivering on promises in this area.

There are concrete steps that the Government could take now to aid carers significantly. Serious action is needed in the area of respite. Respite is vital to the continuum of services to support people with disabilities and their families.

Access to appropriate and regular respite helps prevent residential placements, preserves the family unit, supports stability and improves quality of life. Earlier, a friend of mine and I were emailing back and forth in respect of the upcoming referendum. One of the key problems they have in relation to being able to support the care referendum relates to the lack of respite. They do not have a big family to support them. There are no aunts, uncles or cousins who can pitch in. It is a mother and father, and they receive a maximum of three days' respite per year. The referendum on care is in serious doubt because people who have been suffering year in, year out and striving for services and respite heard that the Government was holding a referendum on and was paying attention to this matter, but they were then presented with the wording has been brought forward. Those people feel that they have not been listened to for years and that his is another example of them not being listened to. What has been put forward will not go any way towards solving the real issues they have in the context of supporting carers in the home.

The Disability Capacity Review to 2032, which we have spoken about on many occasions, shows that there is a significant level of unmet need for respite care. During the review period, the number of disabled people receiving respite increased from 3,652 to 5,758 in 2023. However, while this is an increase, the overall figure has decreased since 2018, when the number of people receiving respite was 6,059. Covid had an impact, but we are still not where we were in 2018. There is still a deficit.

A family carer called Lyndsey who lives in my constituency has done a great deal of advocacy on behalf of Family Carers Ireland. She cares for her son, Jack. She has on a number of occasions outlined publicly the costs involved in relation to respite. They range from specialty vehicles for the family to fit Jack's wheelchair to the cost of heating, which has to be on all year round, and the impact of which, particularly over the past couple of winters, we all know. The number of targeted increases in this motion at least point to a foundation level of support that would help towards these costs.

We need to look at carer's allowance and the means test. The means test for carer's allowance needs to be removed. We need to get to that point. We need to look at the base rates for disability allowance, invalidity pension, illness benefit, carer's allowance and carer's benefit. During Covid, there was an uplift in jobseeker's payments. There was an acknowledgement then of what a living wage and a more tolerable income meant to a household. That has not changed. In fact, costs continue to increase. We need to look at the level of payment.

On home care, last year the Labour Party tabled a motion on the lack of funding for the home care sector which, unfortunately, the Government voted down. The reality is that the Government is ignoring a major problem we have with the home care system. We cannot once again find ourselves playing catch-up to fix a crisis that is only getting worse. We have seen it with the housing crisis. We are seeing it with the trolley crisis. We are also seeing it with the home care system. In budget 2024, the number of funded home-support hours was cut from 23.9 million to 22 million, ostensibly to give increased funding to providers to provide people with a living wage, but this has not happened. We know that there is no commitment to pay for travel time. This move has been rightly criticised and labelled as shrinkflation. The Government knew that this move would result in care cramming where, due to demand, care was being rushed and not provided. This is simply unacceptable. There are so many issues for family carers. This is another instance where the Government's failure to implement proper policies has resulted in a diminution in the level of care. It is why the Government received a score of regressive on the Family Carers Ireland scorecard.

In 2007, the State signed the UNCRPD. It ratified the convention in 2018 but has yet to ratify the optional protocol. We heard earlier that the Government will speed matters up in order to get the protocol ratified. I would like to believe that but, unfortunately, it seems that this is a last-ditch, almost desperate attempt to try and gain momentum for the care referendum, which the Government presented in such a ham-fished way to the people. We in the Labour Party want to see that amendment passed. My party leader, Deputy Bacik, is taking on the likes of Senator McDowell and all others in any debates. We would like to see the same level of commitment from the Government to get this referendum over the line. We are not seeing that. This effort in respect of the UNCRPD is only a poor attempt to try to gain momentum for the referendum.

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