Allowance cuts - Carers must be supported properly

The Carers’ Association invited ministers, Dáil deputies and senators on the new “Care Bus” to visit the home of family carer Alison McKim, a single mother who provides full-time care for her son Zack in Terenure. Seventeen-year-old Zack has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, asthma and is blind.

He is completely dependent on his mother and the Carers’ Association thought, in the run-up to the budget, that a visit to the McKim home would provide a real insight into the needs of such people, and their dependence on the meagre payments they are receiving.

Alison McKim thought her small terraced house would be too small to cater for the politicians, but only five deputies showed up. Normally an editorial would not go into the detail of naming individual deputies, but in this case they showed a concern that deserves to be highlighted. The five deputies were Joe Behan, John McGuinness, Jan O’Sullivan, Roisín Shorthall and Mary Upton. The latter three are all members of Labour.

Joe Behan resigned from Fianna Fáil last year over proposed medical card changes. He later voted against the Government on two crucial votes on cancer vaccines and medical cards. John McGuinness, on the other hand, has remained within Fianna Fáil but he raised many eyebrows earlier this year when he criticised members of the Government for their lack of leadership.

If there was a general election in the offing, maybe Alison McKim’s small terraced house would not have been big enough to admit all of the politicians who would have shown up, but what happened provides a woeful insight into phoney concerns of so many politicians. Maybe some of them had other commitments on the day, but it is more likely that the small turnout was indicative that the politicians in general do not care about the underprivileged, despite their undying expressions of social concern.

The frightening aspect of the turnout was that there was only one government deputy, and nobody from the Seanad bothered to turn up. What the five deputies witnessed was the love of a mother for her vulnerable child in the most trying of circumstances.

Nobody but a loving mother could provide such care, and this deserves to be recognised. If the state were to assume the responsibility, the loving care would be immeasurably inferior and vastly more expensive.

The Carers’ Association are highlighting the plight of the 18,500 family carers who receive a half-rate carers’ allowance of €110 a week. This allowance is paid to carers in receipt of another social welfare payment such as a state pension. They provide full-time high dependency care. If the half-rate carers’ allowance is cut, it will mean a 30% cut in income for them.

Irish people have been famous for their contributions to needy third world people. In the case of the irreplaceable services provided by carers like Alison McKim, the Government should follow the lead of its own citizens. Moral decency demands that such people be supported properly, and not be sacrificed on the altar of political indifference.