By Warren Swords

PUBLISHED: 04:23, 9 December 2012 | UPDATED: 04:23, 9 December 2012

Family carers say they are prepared to go on strike

Such a move would end up costing the State far in excess of any money saved by the controversial cut in this week’s Budget.

The Carers’ Association plans a further protest at the Dáil on Tuesday, with Government backbenchers declaring themselves in ‘open revolt’.

However, some members of the association are calling for strike action that would leave patients stranded in public hospitals.

The Government is coming under massive pressure to reverse the decision, which has been universally criticised as a cruel and unnecessary measure that saves a paltry €26m.

The respite care grant is an annual payment that allows full-time carers to take occasional breaks throughout the year. It helps cover the cost of putting the person being cared for – perhaps a parent with Alzheimer’s or an autistic child – into a respite home, or of hiring professional home care for a short time.

Next year, however, the grant is to be cut from €1,700 to €1,375.

Asked about carers’ plans if the Government continues to stand by the cut, Catherine Cox of the Carers Association said: ‘Carers go on strike. I know carers have talked about this. If somebody is coming out of hospital, carers would refuse to take the person home until the grant is reinstated.

‘Carers are certainly saying that is something they would consider doing because they are saying they can’t keep going the way they are. It’s going to make it difficult, if not impossible, for some carers to keep going.

‘From an association point of view, the issue of a strike is up to carers themselves. We would have to talk to carers after Tuesday and see where they want us to take it,’ Ms Cox said.

‘We save the State about €4bn every year. They would be picking up the costs,’ she added.

‘To care for someone in a residential setting, someone who is highly dependent, costs about five times the amount it would to care for somebody at home. It would be a massive increase if that’s the road we go.’

The threatened strike will tighten the screws on backbench TDs, who are already under enormous pressure in their constituencies.

A Fine Gael TD, who did not want to be named, said colleagues were in ‘open revolt’ over the cut.

‘Fine Gael TDs have expressed their opposition to the leadership,’ said the source. ‘Families who rely on these grants have seen their finances decimated.

‘My constituency office has been under siege from worried families and parents of special needs children. They cannot survive without this money.

‘It’s not the usual rebellious TDs but more sober-minded people. I for one cannot see TDs voting for this cut.’

Labour chairman Colm Keaveney said his party’s backbenchers too had expressed their anger to the Cabinet.

And he hinted that the Government might be forced into a U-turn on the issue though he stressed that he was not advocating opposition.

‘We’ve been at this since Wednesday. Fine Gael have gone back to their constituencies and just realised what’s involved here. I understand that some Dublin based deputies have had meetings,’ he said.

‘I’m not involved in any co-ordinated action. But the respite cuts appear to have animated people across constituency offices. My own office on Thursday and Friday reported an unprecedented number of communications on this issue.’

Asked what response he would like to see from the Government, he said: ‘Despite the fact that we get signals from the leadership that there is no rowback, the Dáil is composed of many young deputies who are very attached to their constituencies and they are very aware now of the significance of the Budget.

‘We have precedents. We have a government who should be magnanimous and say if they got something wrong they should say mea culpa and put their hands up.

‘I welcome what Brian Hayes said the other day in respect that if we get something wrong we should look at it.’

Another Labour TD, Derek Keating, said that he hoped Social Protection Minister Joan Burton would reconsider.

‘At my meeting with her, she indicated she would reconsider if she could get the €26m from elsewhere. But it’s a big ask,’ he said.

On Friday, 250 carers protested outside Leinster House but Ms Cox said the association had been contacted by ‘hundreds if not thousands’ of carers since then.

‘They are all angry. They feel they have been completely unfairly treated and they can’t afford to take this cut on top of the others. They’ve been hit by the household benefit package being cut, the increase in prescription charges, child benefit… ‘It was a huge shock, given that in July this year the Government launched the national carers strategy. Now five months later, they are cutting us. They are going against their own stated policies.’

People cannot believe they’re doing this to us – we’re saving the country a big pile of money

Moira SKELLY, who cares full time for her 17-year-old daughter, Ciara, uses the respite grant to pay the huge electricity and heating bills needed to keep her daughter well.

‘Ciara has a severe intellectual disability,’ explains Moira.

‘She is autistic, has cerebral palsy and she also has intractable epilepsy, which basically means that it doesn’t really respond properly to medication so the seizure keeps on breaking through.

‘We received the respite care every year and we were very grateful for it.

‘What we used it for, mainly, is Ciara is in nappies and she is also peg fed [fed through a tube], so most days we would have to strip her bed, so the washing machine and the drier are constantly going.

‘We also need to use the launderette for the actual duvet because it gets wet too and it won’t fit into the washing machine.

‘We then have a plug-in radiator which we have to leave on all night once the heating goes off because she suffers terribly with the cold because of the cerebral palsy, she can’t keep herself warm.’

At the weekends, Ciara spends all day at home so, once again, Moira needs to keep the heating on all day to ensure her daughter is comfortable.

‘We have a huge gas bill and a huge electricity bill through the winter months,’ says Moira. ‘Because she’s in nappies, we are constantly having to change her clothes and wash them.

‘Intellectually she’s aged about two so she can’t go out on her own. We have to buy special toys for her and they cost an absolute fortune.

‘They are special toys that help her and stimulate her intellectually. We’ve tried our best to have a child-friendly back garden for her as she can’t go out the front.

‘We try to buy little plants and flowers for her, so we put a few bob, when we have it, into the garden.’

Moira’s husband has had to go on a three-day working week for the past 18 months because of Ciara’s health, which exacerbates the impact this cut has on the family.

‘I am absolutely livid and shocked,’ says Moira. ‘We’re down at least €10 a week. We’ll have to fund the gas heating ourselves now, so that’s an extra bill for us.

‘The Government has to realise we are taking care of our child, our child has high special needs and requires 24/7 care.

‘People like us are not willing to put our children into residential care. But if we were to do so, it would cost the Government €800 to €900 per week to keep them there.

‘People like us are saving the State an awful lot of money.

‘We’re doing our best for our children, we want our kids at home, we don’t want them in residential care.

‘By not helping us to do that, it’s putting added pressure and added stress on parents.’

Despite caring for her daughter full time, Moira says she will be outside the Dáil on Tuesday. ‘I’ll be going to the protest. Ciara will be in school that morning so we’ll be able to get in. I was there Friday and we’ll be going out again. We shouldn’t have to do this.

‘They are talking about people on €100,000-a-year pensions and they are not going to be affected until the year after next yet we are affected immediately.

‘That’s very unfair and yet they say they are trying to protect the most vulnerable,’ says Moira.

‘The amount of phone calls we’ve been getting from our family and friends is just incredible, saying they cannot believe the Government has done this to us.’