Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, Deputy Wall, for bringing this important motion before us today and I acknowledge the incredible work of the children and young adults across this country who day in, day out provide support to their family members. I know they do it out of love and loyalty. I know that many do not even consider themselves under the label of carer. It is a way of life. It is their life and they do it out of necessity. It is to that necessity that I want to speak today.

There are children in this country, teenagers and young adults, who are in caring roles and shouldering the burden of care because an abject failure by this Government and successive Governments in this State to provide sufficient healthcare in the community. We have a creaking system of community healthcare out there. We have fewer public health nurses than we did five years ago. There are just 1,500 public health nurses across the country. What does that mean for the young carer and their family? There are fewer nurses in the community checking in on those patients, their families and their needs. If the public health nurse is not checking in on those families, who is?

We have a horrendously long waiting list for home care support of more than 5,500 across the State. In Cork and Kerry, there are more than 1,000 people on the waiting list. In Clare and Limerick, there are 860. That means young carers are having to step in when the professional support should be there. Respite beds are the lifeline of so many families and yet we have dire shortages. The worst feature for me in all of this is that the HSE does not really have a grasp or handle on the level of demand out there. There is no centrally maintained waiting list. All of this culminates in the fact that we have no statutory right to home care support and to healthcare in the home. It has been promised for years and I know it is a promise of this Government, but we have yet to see it.

The reality is that disability and long-term illness can come to any home. I know that all the money in the world will not make up for the impact on family members when that comes to a home, but money can make life easier. We have a reality that those with money have some capacity to buy support if they need it. However, those with nothing have no backup. Time and again in the communities I represent in Dublin Central, we see the vicious cycle of disability or long-term illness and families in poverty with the inability to work or reduced capacity to earn. Time and again I see that when long-term illness visits a family, in particular lone parent families, it falls to the young person in that family to shoulder the burden of care. That is wrong. We need the State to be able to provide much greater supports. The reality is that young carers are living in some of the most disadvantaged households in our communities and that this is a greater issue in working class communities. When we combine disability, long-term illness and poverty, the impact on those children's lives is profound. The reality is that the failure of our State to provide those healthcare supports to people to be cared for in their homes means we are failing children. That has to change.

I thank the Minister for supporting our motion today, but we need real action, and we need it now. We cannot afford to wait because there are children and young adults in the Visitors Gallery and there are thousands across this country who are relying on this Government to ensure we have a proper healthcare support system to look after their family members in the home.

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