A new report has shown that family carers continue to face significant financial pressure, inadequate access to services, poor health and wellbeing and experience loneliness.<\/p>\n
The State of Caring 2026 report was commissioned by the charity Family Carers Ireland, which supports an estimated 624,000 family carers across the country.<\/p>\n
The report was based on responses from 2,930 current family carers caring for at least 4,042 children and adults.<\/p>\n
It showed that 71% are finding it difficult to make ends meet, while almost half, 48%, experience severe loneliness.<\/p>\n
Among family carers experiencing acute financial difficulty, almost half, 49%, said they are cutting back on essentials such as food and heating.<\/p>\n
More than three quarters of respondents are reducing non-essential spending.<\/p>\n
The report also found that of those in acute financial distress, 29% are behind on utility bills, while 15% are falling into arrears with rent or mortgage payments.<\/p>\n
Dr Nikki Dunne, Research Manager with Family Carers Ireland, said: “Government must now recognise care at home as a core pillar of health and social care and properly resource it accordingly.<\/p>\n
“It also means ensuring income adequacy for family carers and funding and delivering on its promise to build and fund robust services for family carers under the carer guarantee.<\/p>\n
“This would include accessible counselling, and emergency supports, reliable respite, services where, when, and how they are needed, and practical day-to-day assistance to family carers wherever they may live.”<\/p>\n
The report also highlighted the significant gaps in formal support, with 69% saying the person they care for does not receive enough.<\/p>\n
Almost two-thirds of respondents reported being on a waiting list for publicly funded services such as therapies, wheelchairs, or Assessments of Need, with 66% of those waiting more than a year.<\/p>\n
Catherine Rossiter, family carer for her twin children Aoife and Eoghan, aged 12, said: “Caring for a loved one is emotionally, physically, and psychologically challenging every day.<\/p>\n
“Recent increases in the cost of living have placed a disproportionate financial pressure on carers.<\/p>\n
“We struggle to manage our money and pay the extra bills that come with caring, such as additional heating costs to keep a home warm for our loved ones, or repaying loans for home adaptations.<\/p>\n
“Telling us that we are ‘great’ for caring for our loved ones does not translate into tangible supports, services, or proper recognition.<\/p>\n
“I often think my life is a test of human endurance. How much can I take as a carer before I break? What will happen to my young daughter and son then? The worry feels endless.”<\/p>\n
The report recommends abolishing the carer’s allowance means test, moving towards a new family carer payment, increasing carer\u2019s allowance and carer\u2019s benefit to \u20ac325 per week, making carer payments tax exempt, introducing a cost of disability payment, extending fuel allowance to all carer\u2019s allowance recipients and providing targeted support for households facing high care-related energy costs.<\/p>\n
Dr Dunne said: “The results highlight not just the value of family care, but the State\u2019s persistent failure to adequately fund and prioritise homecare and supports to family carers through a meaningful homecare scheme and a fully funded carer guarantee.<\/p>\n
“Essential care is being delivered by family carers under conditions that are clearly not sustainable or fair.<\/p>\n
“Without adequate investment, family care will continue to be treated as a low-cost substitute for proper public provision.<\/p>\n
“The result is that family carers themselves bear the cost – through damaged health, severe social isolation, lost income, and diminished life opportunities – while the State avoids meeting its full responsibility.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report has shown that family carers continue to face significant financial pressure, inadequate access to services,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-489920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}