Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

Independent Ireland brought this motion before the House in order for the Government to see common sense. Independent Ireland recently received the chairmanship of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight. The first thing the committee will look at is the cost of healthcare in this country and the value it gives for money, including the overspends. We will not discuss the National Children's Hospital because it is an open book, and a waste of funding.

We look at the carers in this country and the fact that the Government wants to means-test them. This motion advocates for the removal of the means test for carers allowance, ensuring that a full-time carer is supported financially and not penalised by their partner's income. That is common sense. They are providing care.

How many people do we know have given up their jobs because they cannot get carers in their area? My own family members are doing the same. My nieces and nephews have given up their own time and jobs to make sure that a loved one is cared for. They also have their own families, including young children whom they care for. By not providing a proper payment system for carers, we are actually creating a double impact because this affects the families’ ability to care for their own families, if they have young families.

As to the minimum respite guarantee, this motion proposes a legal entitlement to a minimum number of weeks of respite care each year for all carers, acknowledging the importance of breaks for carers. If you go to some place where a carer working 24-7 gets no break, what do they hit? They hit burnout. We have to ensure that carers also get a break. We get a break from the Dáil. Everyone else gets a break from their working life. No matter what sector people are working in, they have a guarantee of breaks. The problem is that sometimes carers feel that if they take their break, there will be no one left to care for the person they are caring for. We have to allow for this through respite.

This motion also calls for improvements to home support services, including ensuring adequate funding for home support hours and addressing workforce shortages.

I do not believe there is anyone in this House who values what carers can do. I mentioned the National Children’s Hospital and the overspending on hospitals. If there is a shortage of nurses in a hospital, where does the hospital get people to fill in? It uses agency staff. If we look at the cost of agency staff, they come to hospitals for a day here and a day there, which does not fix the problem. We should have full-time nurses in hospitals. To me, there should be very few agency staff. There should be full-time staff, not agency staff, because to make somebody better the nurse has to have a relationship with the person. Agency staff should only be brought in as a stop-gap, to fill in if there is no other option. At the moment, however, our health service is top heavy with agency staff who should actually be staff. If we look at the cost of employing an agency staff nurse and the cost of providing a carer in a person's own home, and we look at the difference in what that costs the State, it is absolutely bizarre. For the cost of an agency staff nurse, the Government could possibly employ three carers. This is what we are looking at.

On one side the health service is top-heavy with money in and on the other side the Government is penalising those who care for people well within their own home. People are going above and beyond to care for people in their own homes, and the Government is penalising them. Why can we not have something streamlined that allows us to look after the people who want to help? Carers are taking pay cuts to care for people. They are travelling across this country for an hour here and an hour there. They may be travelling 30 or 40 miles to care for people. They do not go to just one house. They go to people and they help them. In addition, what has been brought into the care system is a regulation that is stopping people who really want to help somebody they know needs extra help within the household. We need to protect that as well and allow for it. If we fund carers properly, we will have people who want to do that work.

Recognition and support for young carers is vital as they are the next generation. They see what people are doing. They see the care provided for their parents, grandparents and people who have disabilities and want to be cared for within their own home. They see that at first hand; they are getting the experience of watching other people do it. What they are actually watching is carers being penalised. They see there is no career choice for them to be carers and to help if they also want to have a life themselves and support a family. If they wish to go into the care sector, we have to make sure it is possible and that it covers all generations. We need to ensure the next generation can see that if they want to be a carer and do good, they can also have a life and will not be penalised for trying to help somebody.

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