Carers have started a campaign to abolish the means test for the Carer's Allowance. The additional cost of paying the allowance to all full-time carers would be about £200 million a year, the Carers' Association said.
The association said it was convinced the money is available. Its director, Mr Eddie Collins-Hughes, points to the ease with which the Government found nearly £200 million extra after the Budget to defuse the row over the individualisation of tax allowances.
"The money is there, but the political will is not at the moment," he said.
Carers from around the State came to Dublin this week to lobby TDs. They included Sean, a west of Ireland man whose wife is a full-time carer for their 23-year-old daughter.
"A family with a disabled or elderly person is a disabled family," he said. "We have had two holidays in 23 years. We had one last September for a week and it took a week to prepare our daughter for residential care."
His daughter goes into respite care for one weekend every month. "It's our lifeline. It's the only time myself and my wife can socialise as a couple."
He believes his wife is treated unfairly by the rules governing the Carer's Allowance. "My wife is a full-time carer and I am working. She is not being treated as an individual because she is means-tested on my income."
The result, said the Carers' Association, is that only about 14,000 of the 50,000 carers in the State get the allowance.
The allowance is a maximum £76.50 a week for a carer aged under 66 and £81.50 for carers aged 66 and over. Rates will go up by £4 a week and £7 a week respectively in May.
If he and his wife were not there to care for their daughter, "the State would have no problem paying £400 or £500 a week to keep her in residential care," Sean said.
People working in residential care have back-up services, he said. By contrast, "home support is practically zero."
"We are in our 50s. We are caring for our daughter who is over nine stone and it's not getting easier."
Mr Collins-Hughes said the Department of Health and Children has become more responsive to carers in recent years. But he is critical of the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs.
The association has had cases of carers having their allowance stopped on the grounds that the people they were looking after did not need full-time care. "We are looking for a commitment to abolish the means test," said Mr Collins-Hughes. Up to now there had been, quite rightly, he said, much concern for the low-paid "but we are concerned with the no-paid."
Email: pomorain@irish-times.ie Weblink: http://www.carersireland.com