This article is from page 9 of the 2012-10-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
CARERS in Clare continue to face obstacles when applying for carers allowance, and that is before any budget has announced.
In the last number of weeks, one carer reported that when she applied for the € 204 carers allowance to look after her mother at home, she was refused. Instead, she was offered a € 730 nursing home subvention.
Asked if this flies in the face of Government policy, Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton said that the process is in a transitional phase.
“We are spending a lot more money on carers and we are giving carers allowance to a lot more people, including the half-way carers allowance, so we have managed to ringfence the budget to increase the number of people receiving it. That is in recognition…of the job the carers do and how vital that is, not just for the person they are caring for but indeed for the whole community,” she said.
“We have been changing the IT systems in the department in relation to all the applications for things like car ers, disability and domiciliary care allowance. And, basically, what we are doing is developing better and faster IT systems. While we are doing that, we have to have the old system and the new system running parallel so there have been some delays but certainly we are now getting into the backlog. The time it is taking has come down significantly. The fresher applications have not been facing anything like that,” she told The Clare People .
The National Carers Strategy, published earlier this year, promised to recognise, empower and support family carers. However, the Carers Association said Ireland’s 187,000 family carers are now facing cuts to home help hours, home care packages and vital support services.
In the 2006 census, 4,507 carers were recorded in Clare. Six years on, the number is likely to be significantly higher. According to the Carers Association, many people don’t recognise themselves as carers when it comes to the census as they believe they are “just looking after a family member”.
“We are calling on Government to stop praising carers with words, while punishing them with cuts. It’s time to turn rhetoric into reality,” said Catherine Cox, spokesperson for The Carers Association.
“Carers across the country are very fearful of what this budget will bring, with further threats of cuts to household benefits packages, free travel for carers and services for young adults with disabilities on reaching 18. All of these, against a backdrop of suspension of housing adaptation grants and increases in the costs of care in the home, are pushing many carers over the edge,” she said.