Care work is as important as ever — carers deserve their reward

Yesterday’s debate on the disadvantaging of mostly women carers when they come to pension age goes to the heart of defining who we are and what we value.

Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea seems to understand that, no doubt from listening to his working-class Limerick constituents and it is completely untrue to say, as Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald did in the Dáil on Tuesday, that he is a late convert to its importance.

O’Dea has been championing the rights of pensioners who served the State with their unpaid work in the home for years.