Just 12% of those caring for elderly are paid

Less than one in eight people looking after older people in the community are paid for the work they do, it has emerged.

Spouses are most frequently identified as the main care givers, but just under 12% receive the carer’s allowance or carer’s benefit.

The findings are contained in a report from The Longitudinal Study on Ageing that is charting the health, social, and economic circumstances of 8,178 people aged 50 or older in Ireland over a 10-year period.

Lead author, associate professor in social policy and ageing at Trinity College Dublin Virpi Timonen, said care policy in Ireland was woefully neglectful of the fact that older people provide the bulk of care to other older people.

“Older carers remain largely unrecognised and unsupported in their enormous efforts to provide care,” she said. “This is saving the State billions of euro per year, but only one-in-10 older spouse carers are receiving carers’ allowance or benefit.”

Of the paid care givers, almost 40% are not affiliated to any organisation or company. Prof Timonen said the situation highlighted the importance of regulating the sector.

At the launch of the report was Tom Curran from Dublin, who cares for his partner Marie, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and needs full-time care.

Mr Curran, who receives the carers’ allowance, gave up his job as an IT consultant to look after his wife 12 years ago.

“I was charging more per day 12 years ago than I now get in a month from the State,” said Mr Curran. He is also angry that he will be described as long-term unemployed when his wife dies.

“I have saved the State over €500,000 looking after Marie as opposed to having her institutionalised,” he said.

Mr Curran said he had thought he would be caring for his wife in partnership with the State but he was wrong — the only help he got was from the Carers’ Association who trained him to look after his wife.

The training he got proved invaluable because he ended up having to instruct most of the carers from the HSE who came to look after his wife.

“Marie is the most important person in my life and it is a privilege to provide the care to her but people like me should get more help,” he said.

Mr Curran, who is in his mid-60s, said he had postponed a surgical operation on three occasions over the past 18 months because he could not get home care for his wife while he recovered from the surgery.

He had refused the offer of nursing home care for his wife over a six-week period while he recovers because he feared his wife would never come home.