Last year's budget was the "greatest assertiveness course ever" for Veronica Monaghan. Its introduction of the "individualisation" approach to economic planning spurred Veronica, a full-time carer in the Raheen area of Limerick city, to a point where she had to say: "I'm not taking this any more. I'm not going to just let this Government walk all over me any more."
Veronica left her job with Guinness Peat Aviation 13 years ago to care on a full-time basis for her mentally handicapped son, Paul, who is now 14. "I loved my job. I was good at it and it nearly killed me to pack it in," she says. Married and now with two other sons, John (8) and Stephen (4), she says she would never change her decision, but that her "difficult job" is made impossibly frustrating by the way carers are treated.
Paul developed a severe form of epilepsy when he was about 10 months old. This is characterised by seizures, developmental delay and behavioural disturbances.
A gentle, enthusiastic and disarmingly friendly boy, he is, says Veronica, operating at about the level of a two-year-old.
"When we were first told about Paul's condition we were trying all sorts of medication, trekking up and down to Dublin always holding out hope that something might come along," says Veronica, stroking the back of Paul's head.
Throughout our conversation he gets up from the couch beside his mum to talk about trips to see trains and to west Cork.
"But after a year I suppose," continues Veronica, "we realised it wasn't going to be fixed by tablets. I got work in the evenings and worked like that for about a year and a half. But I was putting in a lot of one-to-one work with Paul and he needed that constantly. So I left work altogether."
Paul qualifies for a Domiciliary Care Allowance of about £117 a month, though Veronica is entitled to nothing. As her husband's yearly income puts the family income over the threshold for the means-tested Carer's Allowance, Veronica does not get it.
Furthermore, since Budget 1999 two individual earners can earn more before paying tax than a married couple with one income between them.
"When that came in I was so mad," says Veronica emphatically. "I don't have a choice about staying at home. I wish the Government would stop looking at carers as a financial burden and start realising they are saving the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds in residential care.
"I was brought up in the 1960s to cherish people who were different. Now the State is not only not rewarding us, it's discriminating against us. It gives us no recognition, no sense that it acknowledges that what we are doing important, difficult work." Paul has some difficulties walking, eating can be problematic, and there are obvious language and social skill problems. If he needs to go to the toilet, one must be found immediately and he has difficulty keeping his weight up. These are almost fully overcome with some aids such as a plate surround to keep food on the plate, a wheelchair for occasional use and a lot of flexibility, patience and love.
Asked about a good day, Veronica smiles. Such a day begins with having had a night's sleep, a night when Paul has slept through without a seizure. "That's like manna from heaven. We'd get up , he'll be alert and I'll fully dress him, get him breakfast and he goes off to school [Lisnagry National School for special needs] on the bus. He gets back about 3 p.m., we yap about the day, Daddy comes home at about six and Paul will go to bed when he's tired, at about 9 o'clock."
Sunday was a bad day.
"We were going into Mass and he had a seizure, just keeled over. Though you've seen it before you worry, wonder what's wrong and worry that you are going to have 10 difficult days' nursing ahead . . . You can't really plan day-to-day."
She and her husband rarely go out together, and they must be careful to make time for the other two boys. Despite the sacrifices she "wouldn't change a thing".
"I wouldn't be without them," she says of her sons. "If you love a person you give them the very best you can. But as a carer in this country you really feel sometimes no one in the Government gives a damn."
This series concludes on Friday.