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Carers Situation Must Be Addressed

By February 26, 2016No Comments

The way we treat carers in this country has got to be addressed as a matter of priority.These people who are doing such fantastic work on a 24 hours a day 7 days a week basis receive a modest weekly payment of just 208 Euro per week. These people are penalised if they work in excess of 15 hours per week, which makes no sense at all. In fact we have a situation that in some cases where it has been found that people have worked 16 or 17 hours per week they have been asked to replay all their carers allowance payments back to the Department which is very harsh.
In addition, there is no respite facilities in place at all for carers to allow them to get away for even a few hours a week. The facts are that respite teams have not been put in place around the country. It is also totally unfair on carers to have to wait up to four months to hear whether their application is successful or not. People are being sent back several times to answer meaningless questions that hold up the whole process which is totally unnecessary. Carers are saving the exchequer a fortune. Under the Fair Deal Scheme it costs the state at least 600 Euro per week to put someone in a nursing home. The weekly allowance of 208 Euro for carers represents a huge saving for the state and we have to put more resources into carers. If you can keep people at home it saves the state a lot of money to it makes sense in the long run. This is an issue that I will be returning to as a priority if I am elected on February 26th..