Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)

Carers and front-line healthcare workers are the backbone of our care system, enabling people with high-care needs to live with dignity at home. Home care workers and family carers bring significant improvements to people’s health and well-being, reduce pressure on hospitals and deliver enormous savings for the health service but we know that many vulnerable people are not receiving the level of care that they need. It is extremely important that any person who requires care receives it in a timely manner, that they are supported to remain at home if that is their wish and that people are not left in unsafe situations, particularly when they are discharged from hospital or other medical settings.

I was recently contacted about an elderly constituent who has a tumour and had undergone five days of intensive chemotherapy in hospital. She was sent home without any supports despite her family’s concerns that they would not be able to care for her properly. This is a person with limited mobility and poor short-term memory, who cannot get out of bed or use the bathroom on her own. Her family expressed concern for her well-being and that they would not be able to meet her care needs, yet she was sent home without any home supports put in place. Unsurprisingly she ended up back in hospital only a couple of days later. It was a desperately unfair situation for that person and that family to be left in.

I also want to raise supports for carers. The Government parties gave a commitment during the general election to scrap the carer’s allowance means test. We will hold them to that commitment because the failure to adequately support carers up until now has been appalling. Their role has been undervalued and unrecognised and many are struggling to cope. The Government needs to follow through on that commitment and it needs to increase payments as well and finally begin to value the significant contribution that carers make.

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