Outcry would be ‘worse than medical cards’
Social Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin recently suggested carers could be an “obvious” target for the special group appointed by the Government to identify cutbacks in public spending.
But appearing before the Oireachtas committee on social affairs yesterday, the chief executive of the Carers’ Association Enda Egan said the Government would be making a gross mistake if it reduced the allowances.
He warned it would prompt a greater outcry than the Government decision to end the automatic entitlement to medical cards for the over-70s.
“If this issue does come to the fore, it will be a bigger issue than the medical card issue,” Mr Egan said.
Between them, the country’s 161,000 carers work about three million hours a week, he added. This significantly eases pressure on the health services and saves the State an estimated €2.5 billion a year.
Of the 161,000 carers, about 27,500 receive the full-rate allowance and another 16,000 receive the half-rate payment. The full rate ranges from €220.50 to €358.50, while the half rate ranges from €110.25 to €179.25.
In her comments, Ms Hanafin placed particular emphasis on the half-rate allowance as an area that might be targeted for savings, saying that particular scheme was proving “quite costly”.
But Mr Egan said it would be an “absolute disgrace” if existing funding levels were reduced for a volunteer group that is already on the edge of Ireland’s poverty line.
“The difficulty that carers are in is that they are a hidden group. They’re not a big hospital sitting out anywhere around the country where we can have our politicians go and have big opening days and put plaques on the wall. They’re doing this in their own homes. They’re a hidden group, they’re not seen, and that should not be taken advantage of,” he said.
He told the committee that carers urgently required a needs-based assessment system to ensure they were not forced onto the poverty line. This assessment would also consider the carer’s health and social needs.
Quoting a survey conducted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists last year, Mr Egan said that one in four carers described their health as “not very good” or “not at all good”.
More than half of carers had medical problems, the most frequent being back injuries, the survey found.
Almost half said they had experienced being mentally and physically drained by the workload involved in caring for a loved one.
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