Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our visitors to the Public Gallery. I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response. It would be remiss of me to speak about young carers without acknowledging our 2024 Limerick Person of the Year, Ellen Gannon from Newcastle West who cares for her two brothers, nine-year-old twins Andrew and James, both of whom are autistic. Today we heard very powerful testimony from four young carers, Conor, Lucy, Benjamin and Sarah Ann. I commend them on coming in to speak to us. Young carers exist in the shadows, with their work often going unnoticed outside the home. They are at greater risk of mental and emotional difficulties, more likely to be bullied and more prone to experiencing food poverty.

Caring is also a risk factor for children and young people's mental health and well-being. This is often little understood and often invisible to professionals and policymakers. My local university, University of Limerick, launched an important initiative to raise awareness of UL students who are family carers. This could and should be replicated in second level and primary schools across the country. It has developed the expertise and a model. We just need the political will to push this forward. There are more than 15,000 student carers in higher education. It is something that negatively affects the educational attainment of our young people. It is causing people to drop out of third level or reconsider going to third level.

There is also a need for specific training for teachers, who need to be equipped to identify young carers. This could and should be done through the in-service programme. Often, teachers do not know. They think, for example, that a student might be late or not doing homework, etc., whereas a student is often a carer who may be up half the night and may have duties in the home that supersede what they do at school. We also badly need a single point of contact in every school who young carers can approach if they are struggling, late or have to deal with the embarrassment of constantly having to explain themselves.

I would like the Government to engage with the substance of the motion, particularly the two issues I raised in regard to education. We also need to see a plan for when and how the income disregard will be phased out over the lifetime of the Government.

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