Lorraine Clifford-Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Many colleagues want to contribute and we are under time pressure. Members will be glad to hear I will keep my contribution very brief and will definitely not run over time. I very much welcome today's discussion and I commend Senator Seery Kearney on laying this motion before the House. I am glad we have the opportunity to discuss carers and the vital role they play.

The pandemic has brought the issue of care and the value we place, as a society, on caring for members of it who are old, sick, young or who have special needs. There are more than 500,000 family carers in Ireland today, more than 60% of whom are female. They save the State more than €20 billion a year. Care should be central to how we plan our society but, unfortunately, it is often an afterthought. The pandemic was very hard on everybody, but family carers have been left particularly under pressure with the closure of day services and other supports. They are exhausted, burned out and facing huge stress right now.

The recent Citizens' Assembly on gender equality specifically focused on the role of care in Irish society and recommended that the article on the woman's place in the home in the Constitution be deleted and replaced with a broader obligation on the State to take reasonable measures to support care within the home and wider community. It is only right and proper that we are now discussing the support that should be given to support care and the people who care within the home and within our communities.

Carers do what they do because they love the person they are caring for. However, this does not mean they should provide care without proper financial and other supports. Carers are left in a very vulnerable position due to lack of financial supports, pension entitlements and the proper training needed to do their essential jobs. People who have been caring for more than 20 years should be given a lifetime carer's pension due to their inability to otherwise source pension provision, which was the point referenced by Senator Mullen. As the majority of carers are women, they are the people falling into this pension trap. It is one of a number of pension barriers women in society face.

We should treat carers with dignity and respect. Making proper provision for them now and into the future is how we show dignity and respect to the people doing such an essential service.We should not be giving them empty platitudes. I am very conscious when we are discussing this issue that we praise the role carers perform but that we also acknowledge such praise is just not enough. We need to follow it up. I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister of State has to say about the financial supports that we should be giving carers and I look forward to hearing the contributions of all of my colleagues. This is an essential conversation that we must have. We are moving towards a position where we will have a referendum on the woman's place in the home being removed from the Constitution and a broader caring article put in. We need to first have a conversation as to what society we want to build post-pandemic, considering that we will have that constitutional referendum.