Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

I welcome this motion from Independent Ireland. It is very well written and if implemented would make a significant difference to carers and people who are cared for. Care is the most valuable service delivered in Ireland now. First and most significant, it is most valuable in human terms. The relationships we have with people are actually the most important things that exist. When we strip everything back and take all the superfluous stuff away, at the end of the day it is the relationships we have with our loved ones that are the most important issues. So many individuals and families have either a parent - a mother or father - or a child who they are struggling to care for or are struggling to find care for. Care, therefore, is enormously valuable in human terms. It means as well that those individuals can be brought on, developed and loved and cared for in comfort and without pain and suffering. This is enormously beneficial for society.

Care is also extremely valuable in financial terms. Billions of euro are saved in terms of the care given by loved ones to loved ones throughout Irish society. If the State were to take on the cost of delivering that care, it would put great pressure on the State's coffers. Undoubtedly, it would not do it as well or efficiently or with the same level of love. This is the second major aspect. According to a response we in Aontú received to a parliamentary question, right now in the hospital services there are 373 people who have been clinically discharged in hospitals in Ireland currently. This means they have gone through the hospital system and been looked after. All the work to be done by the doctors and nurses is complete. They cannot do any more for these individuals. These individuals are only in hospital because there is nowhere else for them to go. This is incredible. These people could leave hospital if they had a proper nursing home, a proper carer in their home or a step-down facility such as the national rehabilitation centre but, because these services are not provided or funded, these individuals are stuck in hospital. This means there is an enormous cost to the State because these individuals are stuck in hospital. It is also extremely difficult for these individuals because they are stuck in hospital. Additionally, practically the same number of people are stuck on trolleys outside hospitals and cannot get in because these beds are taken up with people who should be elsewhere. An enormous cost to the State results from that level of dysfunction and not providing the necessary care to individuals.

If carers were paid with money instead of platitudes, they would be the richest people in Ireland. We are going to see this Chamber fill up over the next two hours and Members are going to tip their caps and express enormous gratitude for the wonderful work of carers. Carers do not want platitudes any more, to be honest. Carers just want a proper salary and wage for the work they do. The problem I have is that typically the Government looks at carer's allowance as social welfare. I think this is at the root and the heart of the difficulty in Irish society. Carer's allowance is not social welfare.

It is a payment given to people for work of value given to other individuals. We need to delete the idea that carer's allowance is in some way social welfare from the heart of Government. Having a carer's allowance threshold in place is at the heart of the difficulty for so many individual families who are struggling to provide care for their families. The Government put it into the programme for Government that it would delete the threshold in the context of achieving this, but we have seen no meaningful step change on that. We have seen no meaningful pathway or progress on getting rid of that in completion. Yes, there have been changes in the threshold levels, but we need to delete that threshold and we need to do it fast.

Looking at care in its totality, I mentioned that it is one of the most valuable services delivered in the country, but it is the most devalued service in terms of Government approach. Whether it is those caring for children in care centres, early years education or State care, for example, or for older people in nursing homes, or carers delivering care in the home, it is incredible that they are probably the individuals who are paid least in the State. We are talking in the main about people who are paid just above the minimum wage. This encompasses individuals who are in early years education. Incredibly, the majority of them have gone through third-level education to achieve their qualifications, yet the pay is horrendously low. This Government even has a cap on the amount of money individual businesses can earn, and that has a knock-on effect on how much they can pay those particular individuals.

The situation regarding children in State care is absolutely shocking, one on which there will be tribunals of investigation in the future. There are currently children going missing or going into special emergency accommodation that is not properly regulated, with children in some cases being exploited by criminal gangs involved in sexual exploitation. Again, individuals working in that space are not paid what they should be paid.

As regards nursing homes, last year a raft of nursing homes closed throughout the country. Older people were taken out of nursing homes and put into new nursing homes just so they could find somewhere to live. Most people across the country who need to find a nursing home for an older person, such as a parent, are struggling to do so. Families looking after loved ones are not being paid properly.

As well as this, people who are working in caring for elderly people or people with disabilities get very little money for hours worked and have to travel from client to client off their own bat, paying for their own fuel during the day. The Government is basically ensuring there is continuous tightness in the labour market because it will not pay the proper wages.

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