No Happy Christmas for family carers

Since the recession began family carers have feared what they would face in every budget. What was austerity for the community at large hit the carers harder.

In 2012 we could not believe our ears when they cut the annual Respite Care Grant by almost 20% – from €1,700 to €1,350. The Fuel Allowance Scheme was also cut by six weeks and home help hours were cut by €8 million from September to December 2012. An additional 500,000 hour cut was imposed earlier this year.

And so we came to 2014. The big one was ministers talking about Budget 2015 offering social recovery for families. What we discovered was that family carers just do not matter. There was no social recovery for carers. And that hurt a lot.