Minster’s threat to bite the hand that cares
IF Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin had her way, Christopher Callaghan would come with a price tag.
In 1999 the 81-year-old father of two from the deprived Liberties area of Dublin, who spent 49 years struggling for work on the docks, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and serious lung problems at St James’s hospital.
Over the next decade Christopher’s condition steadily deteriorated, so much so that when his daughter Marie returned from California in October 2007 for a short vacation she felt she had no option but to stay.
Since then Marie, who took retirement in California in 2001, has been her father’s nurse, helper and constant companion, and like the majority of Ireland’s estimated 161,000 family carers, receives less than €220.50 a week from the State for her time.
And in the bust period after Ireland’s boom, this sum — or the half-rate of €110.25 given to 15,000 people — appears to be too big a price to meet people’s needs in their final years.
Last week, Ms Hanafin strongly suggested that cuts to the carers’ allowance could be implemented to bolster Government finances. While she made no mention of cutting the full carers’ allowance, she specifically stated that the half-rate payment — introduced in September 2007 as part of the previous December’s budget — could be reduced.
If the minister’s suggestion becomes reality, Marie says she and people like her — who save the State an estimated €2.5bn every year by caring for their relatives at home instead of sending them to public facilities — will be left with no option but to give up on the relatives they support.
If her already sub-standard carers’ allowance is cut, Marie says her father Christopher will spend his final years in an “overcrowded” nursing home, looked after by staff who, while highly trained, are not his family and not the people whose support he wants.
Due to the tight finances, Marie effectively has no social life, with all of her money being spent on groceries, electricity and heating bills.
“When I hear that minister talking about cutting the allowance, I just don’t know what planet she’s on.
“My dad has worked all his life for this country, he’s a very good man, he’s been a very good father, and he always made a point of standing up for what he thought was right.
“He took a job shovelling coal in the docklands so me and my brother could go to secondary school when there were still State fees for secondary school. And because of that job he now has serious lung problems.
“I don’t want to put him in a nursing home, I owe it to him not to, but that’s what I’ll have to do if the allowance is reduced.”
Under the existing system, anyone under the age of 66 who provides care for one person and who has a private income under €332.50 is entitled to a €220.50 allowance.
The figure rises to €330.75 if the individual cares for two or more people, €239 for a carer over the age of 66, and €358.50 for a pensioner caring for two or more people.
The half-rate carers’ allowance, which Ms Hanafin has suggested may be cut, involves a €110.25 payment to anyone under the age of 66 who is caring for one person, rising to €165.37 if the care is provided to more than one person, with €119.50 and €179.25 provided to a carer of pensionable age caring for one or more person respectively.
As a result, Marie’s concern over how she will cope if the allowance is cut is far from a one-off situation, with the Carers’ Association saying it has been “inundated” with calls in the week since Government cuts were first mooted.
Speaking after the minister’s comments, the voluntary organisation’s chief executive Enda Egan said cutting the allowances would be “an absolute disgrace”, with many of the estimated 161,000 carers — 15,000 of whom receive the half-rate payment — “already living on the poverty line” despite providing the State with “front line services in the community”.
He said family carers contribute more than three million hours of care per week which are placing them under significant financial hardship.
The Department of Social and Family Affairs declined to comment when contacted the following day, saying it had nothing further to add to the minister’s statement.
It wasn’t the answer carers like Margaret Curran wanted to hear. Three decades ago her husband John suffered a broken neck in an accident, leaving him paralysed and with no feeling in any of his limbs.
John and Margaret, who are both 67 and from Seaview in Co Kerry, refused to give in to the tragic scenario facing them, despite not receiving any financial support from the State until the mid-1990s.
In 1993, John was named Kerry Person of the Year after he published two books despite his disability, while Margaret was named National Carer of the Year in 2007.
As she has a non-contributory State pension, Margaret now receives the half-rate carers allowance of €110.25 a week. This is the allowance Ms Hanafin has suggested may be cut.
“I’m shocked they would even consider treating people like this. They’re attacking the old and the vulnerable,” she says. “When John had his accident, our youngest child was just five weeks and our oldest was 10.
“I’ve looked after him all those years, it was very tough at the start because we had no State help at all.
“I’m annoyed they’d consider asking us to go back to that... it would be like asking someone to cut their wages by a third. We couldn’t cope.”
On Wednesday, the Carers’ Association will make a similar statement when it meets the cross-party Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs. In particular, the group will raise concerns over plans detailed in a long-awaited inter-departmental Government strategy report outlining the future of carers in Ireland.
After a long delay, the document is due to be published in the next two months, but the Carers’ Association fears that after the spectre of potential financial cuts it will be a “watered down” version of what is needed.
Age Action Ireland has condemned any move to reduce the carers’ allowance, with spokesman Eamon Timmins stating that such a move would “fly in the face of Government commitments to protect this section of society”.
They have been joined by dementia group Home Instead Senior Care, which has warned that the estimated 50,000 “forgotten heroes” who care for relatives with Alzheimer’s and other memory-related conditions would be “no longer able to care for themselves”, if the cuts are implemented.
As An Bord Snip Nua makes its calculations to re-balance Ireland’s books, Ms Hanafin appears to be softening up the country for an attack on the very people the State should be protecting.
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