Keith Swanick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and I am very happy to support this Bill, which will provide for eligibility for GP services without charge to be extended to all those in receipt of carer’s allowance or carer’s benefit. Carer’s allowance is a payment to people on low incomes looking after a person who needs support because of age, disability or illness, including mental illness. Similarly, carer’s benefit is a payment made to insured people who leave the workforce to care for a people in need of full-time care and attention. The carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit and the respite grant, now the carer's support grant, were introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government. I spoke to the Minister earlier about an issue that I have also spoken about to our health spokesperson, Deputy Donnelly. I have also been working on it with Senator Murnane O'Connor, who has been doing great work with Ms Catherine Cox, who looks after the carers in Carlow.A cohort of people lose the carer's benefit after 104 weeks, but, of course, they continue to care for people. This cohort, which numbers 6,000 to 8,000 nationally, should also qualify under this scheme.

In seeking submissions from the general public to the loneliness task force we received a significant volume of correspondence from carers. According to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, there are 360,000 family carers in Ireland. Family carers provide care and support to a person with a disability, chronic condition, mental health concern or long-term illness. They care for the person in their own home and as a result are usually confined to the home unless there is a suitable respite service, or another family member is available at that time to take over caring responsibilities. The majority of family carers in an Irish study reported major restrictions on their social or leisure activities, with isolation being a problem for many. They take up the mantle of caring for others with their own health often suffering as a result.

The Bill intends to remove the financial barrier to accessing a GP to encourage people to seek treatment at an earlier stage, rather than delaying the decision to seek care until the point at which the illness has progressed to the point where it requires hospitalisation, which is a much more expensive form of care. In the next 30 years, the number of people in Ireland aged over 65 will double and the number aged over 85 will almost quadruple. We are living longer than our ancestors could ever have envisioned, but inevitably as we grow old we will all experience the ailments and disabilities which are part and parcel of ageing. We need to look after our most vulnerable and those taking care of them.

Despite my bias, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the horrendous condition of general practice and how it is being crippled under the current Government. There is no point in giving GP visit cards to carers if there are no GPs to look after them. GPs have faced repeated cuts. There is an almost complete breakdown between GPs and the HSE with regards to retention and recruitment. According to some estimates, seven out of ten GP surgeries are no longer taking new patients. This is an important aspect of this Bill; it is not a tangent. If we are to provide carers with GP visit cards, we need to have doctors to see them. An inclusive process is needed. Contract negotiations are meant to be under way with one union, the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO. However, the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, services 2,500 GPs. We are not going to get unilateral support, and we are not going to get a contract negotiated and agreed unless all stakeholders are at the table.

In August 2016, the Minister for Health stated: "I think it is absolutely essential that we have the new contract negotiated and I want to see the NAGP as part of that... what I am doing is saying very clearly that when we get down to negotiating the GP contact, which I expect to happen by the end of the year, that the NAGP need to be in the room". That is not happening.