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LAST UPDATE | 10 Mar 2024
EVEN THOUGH NOTHING has changed, I woke up this morning feeling relieved and vindicated.
The landslide No vote in the Care referendum – far from being an endorsement of the existing constitutional wording or the sentiment that it implies – was a rejection of the reprehensible ableist alternative on offer.
However, this is not a victory for anyone, the sexist language still stands; carers and people with disabilities are still denied rights-based access for supports.
When I first read the proposed wording, I was shocked by the definition of care being restricted to within the family, and the lack of obligation on the State to provide supports. Surely, I was missing something?
I saw that Family Carers Ireland and the National Women’s Council were supporting it so they must see something I can’t, right? So, I asked them on social media to tell me how this wording would improve my daily life.
No answers were forthcoming – and while I was waiting for answers, other carers joined in and assured me they saw the same problem with the wording.
We began to exchange stories and opinions, I shared a blog post I had written and suddenly we were a voice of protest.
The Yes/No campaign was an authentic, grassroots, progressive group made up of carers, disability activists and the few remaining allies we had left.
While we agreed with the modernisation of our Constitution, we did not agree it should be at the cost of replacing sexism with ableism and ignoring the rights of the people who give and receive care.
This wording reduced people with disabilities to mere recipients of care, non-autonomous burdens to be foisted on families while the State washed its grubby hands promising merely to ‘strive’ to support us.
The fact that carers and people with disabilities had to spend so much time and energy pointing out the ableist intent of Article 42B, just serves to highlight that ableism stubbornly remains an acceptable prejudice.
It’s so baked into our charity model of support that educated Yes advocates in various NGOs didn’t see anything wrong with hailing this wording as ‘a step in the right direction’ – or ‘a nudge forward’.
Would waffle like this be tolerated as an excuse to deny rights to any other minority in the name of so-called progress?
Refusing to engage
The Yes/Yes campaign doubled down, refused to engage with us, turned off comments on social media and ignored countless emails. I expected this kind of behaviour from the Government but not from the NGOs who are my advocates. Where was the opposition?
We powered on, told our stories online, portrayed the soul-crushing grind of caring in Ireland. We engaged people in conversation, they were prepared to hear our voices and change their minds.
This was not always easy; it was yet another referendum campaign demanding that citizens bare the intimate details of their lives to appear equal and thereby worthy of the changes on offer.
Carers are highly skilled healthcare professionals; we are the only group of workers who have no statutory rights. We have no annual leave, we work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If we are paid at all, we get less than the minimum wage, but only if we can prove we are poor enough to warrant payment.
The force of our resistance to this referendum highlighted the wealth of talent and chorus of powerful voices of carers and people with disabilities who are locked out of civil society, blocked from participating in meaningful work because of means-tested payments. Is our society happy to squander such a rich resource to a charity-based model of support?
My 20 years of caring have been lonely and isolating. I gave up a career I loved, and with that I lost my pension and financial security. Parenting a child with additional care needs in Ireland is something akin to trench warfare.
Twilight Zone of shame and fear
Apart from the physical and emotional drain, the constant indignity of gruelling, petty administrative work required to qualify for every crumb of support is dehumanising.
I hadn’t realised until I engaged with fellow carers, inhabitants of this Twilight Zone of medical card applications and means tests, just how much shame I had internalised over the years.
Shame that I was reduced to exposing all my financial failings to prove myself poor enough to qualify for a measly €248 per week. Shame that my self-employed partner may have inadvertently earned over the weekly limit and that I may have been in receipt of money to which I wasn’t entitled.
Speaking my truth on social media with other carers made me realise this is inbuilt into the system to dehumanise us, to give us just enough to barely survive, to continually make us prove our worth, to exhaust us so we don’t have the energy to complain and remind us how lucky we are to be in receipt of this grace and favour by a paltry increase in the odd Budget.
Much of the last 20 years has also been marked by shame’s companion fear; the existential fear that the next medical setback could kill my son.
The daily grinding fear that with the click of a mouse, some bureaucrat or computer could just say No and extinguish the tiny trickle of support.
Fear that I hadn’t fought hard enough to get early intervention. Fear that because I was exhausted and didn’t write that other email or escalate a complaint up the line my son wouldn’t get speech therapy.
It would be my fault if he lost his ability to eat and remained tube fed for life. Sharing stories with carers has shown me the odds were stacked against me, the State would always win.
This campaign has been exhausting but oh how liberating. I have met some incredible comrades all struggling with the same emotions evoked by the bloody mindedness of the system.
Their solidarity has quelled my fear and restored my broken, battered voice. I pledge to continue to use it to get the rights we are so long overdue.
Ann Brehony lives in Galway and cares for her 20-year-old son Rory who was born without kidneys. She also works part-time as a script editor.
Not one word on the housing crisis in this article.Why would any teacher want to work in Dublin for example with exorbitant rents and virtually no prospect of getting on the housing ladder.No wonder places such as Dubai are benifitting from our education system.
@Willie Marty: apparently they’re not buying houses in dubai either as the union is highlighting the problems of returning?
@brian o’leary: ??
No full time jobs for teachers, but let’s pay out hundreds of thousands to an RTE executive who was responsible for the Deceit, Lies & Misinformation around salaries, refused to attend the PAC, goes out sick for months & is then rewarded by the “new transparent regime” who hide their rewarding for incompetence, behind a Non Disclosure Agreement. What a mess of a country, Simon Harris allowing the whole RTE debacle continue, while schools can’t even get full time teachers. The moral of the story is, the more crooked, corrupt, incompetent you are, the more likely you are to succeed in Ireland, the days of being honest & hard working in Ireland are only for the fools.
@SV3tN8M4: hospitals taking on foreign staff…Irish Nurses in Sydney a few years ago holding signs saying ‘give is a reason to come home’
We are speeding towards an education crisis in Ireland. Just as decades of FF and FG has brought us a healthcare crisis and a housing crisis, their policies are also destroying education. We have packed schools with 30 or more students in each class. The number of students with additional needs is increasing as supports available to them decrease. Teachers are increasingly expected to parent, as well as educate. Norma Foley’s phoney war on phones is a great example of this.
@Keyser Söze: You do realize that poorly educated children become adults who don’t necessarily practice scrutiny and skepticism, may focus on convenience and compliance (where parents are unable or unwilling to fill such gaps) and thus become sheeple citizens?
Limit career breaks to after 35. Went into a bar in Perth. 8 Irish teachers working there all under 40 and all on career breaks from teaching. Teachers with 3-4 years working should not be allowed to take career breaks. Do the job or leave, get out. Politicians do not set a good example.
@Alan Cooke: one important reason why young teachers take career breaks abroad is to try and build up a lump sum for a deposit on a house. This issue is directly related to the housing crisis.
@Alan Cooke: won’t make a difference. We’ve had two teachers just resign after failing to get a career break extension and stay in Dubai. A permanent job is not what it once was if you can’t get somewhere to live. And if they do come back they know they’ll get another job no problem.
@Alan Cooke: Nonsense argument. I am teaching 15 years, the last 5 being in Sydney. I was stuck in the Irish system with no chance of progression because the Irish system values length in the job over efficacy. One year in Australia and I was earning 40K more than in Ireland, I pay 30% tax and I have been promoted twice. The Irish system is years behind England, Australia etc.
The worst minister we’ve ever had. Let’s ban mobile phones. Which she knows won’t work at second level. Let’s continue to make allowances in state exams for Covid years after the fact. Let’s give free books to those who don’t need them to win some votes. And on and on it goes
Re-hire Enogh Burke.
@Karin Ahlers: We’re desperate but not that desperate!
@Karin Ahlers:
Haha hahaha No school on earth would touch him.
Even the head of the famously fanatical Westboro Baptist church in Kansas said he goes too far.
@Karin Ahlers: lol… culty lunatic cant even get an open comments section!
@jak: he was locked up because he’s an attention hoor who disrupted a school. If he walked into a school in the US without the right to be there he might have been shot.
I’m currently a Pme student in year 2, the salt in the wound regarding the tremendous cost is the utter irrelevance of the content of the course to instill the necessary skills to actually teach. Countless non value add essays. You can tell when it was expanded to 2 years they scraped the barrel for content, at least 60% fluff which enormous overlap/repetition of content. That’s what I find most demoralising, 13000 euros for fluff. Keep the money if that’s their primary concern, which I suspect it is, but my god lean up the program and trim the morbid obesity of fat that is currently contained within.
Maybe change the pay scales so they get more starting off and less later on as they’re much less likely to go off to dubai etc when they’re 40+ and have a mortgage and kids etc?
@brian o’leary: If they’re only getting partial hours then even with elevating the pay scale teachers are starting out on miniscule money. And theres no requirement on principals to increase those teachers’ hours over time either. Why would you stay?
@Mindful Muinteoir: a new type of permanent contract could be created, where a teacher could work in a few different schools within an area?
@brian o’leary: who would pay for the exhorbitant cost of travelling to several different schools? Also would timetabling give a person time to travel between classes?
@Ashling Fenton: exorbitant? My town has 5 secondary schools within walking/cycling distance? Milage could be orovided, with scheduling keeping travel to a minimum.
My cousin worked “temporarily” for 12 years and missed out on pension contributions and mortgage opportunities.
She then emigrated.
@Padraig O’Brien: This ^^. The crisis is in availability of dogs-body teachers willing to take shite hours or last-minute day-to-day subbing. Treat teachers & teaching with respect.
Point one of the payscale while paying Dublin rents lol…doesn’t take Einstein to work out the lack of new teachers in urban areas. After all those years in college…get out of here and onto a plane to a country that won’t bleed you dry in your younger years and will pay you well and not tax you to death while destroying you with high rents.
Some ideas to help solve the problem. Teachers need to be able to change schools without having to give up their CID. Access to redeployment must improve. Extra pay needs to be given to those who have extra qualifications. Posts need to return to being based on seniority. Teachers who return to the profession should not have to start at point one of the scale again. School inspections need to be stopped.
@peter lynch: I agreed with all of that bar posts being based on seniority. The fact that Brenda who has been doing a mediocre job for 18 years is automatically entitled to a post is the kind of thing that drove me to Sydney. Ridiculous notion that you won’t find in any leading education system.
I also disagree with school inspections being stopped however, let’s make them about pedagogy and making teachers better rather than catching people out who don’t have paperwork completed. The fact that most inspectors are woefully out of date with current research on best practice doesn’t help either.
@Mark De Brún: needs to go back to seniority as interview system is abused & regardless of who gets them in current system once they have them they cannot be taken away so productivity will reduce regardless as it can now potentially remain with the same person for 30 years or more. A more regular change is more of a healthy environment where experience is respected. I agree with inspections if inspectors have significant teaching experience & training done
I’m 86 years old.My father was a Classics master,brothers,Grand parents,great grandparents were school teachers.I would respectfully suggest that the calibre of those graduating from Colleges are often not suitable or committed to their profession .If you were studying for Nursing you would have assessment en route as to your suitability ,comittement etc.and in some Asian country’s would be required to give at least 5 years of work in your own country before you went abroad,
Part of the problem not mentioned in the article is the fact that teachers can take a career break of up to 5 year’s and up to 10 year’s over the course of their career.
What other occupation in the country is allowed to do that and then expect to be somehow comeback home from wherever and keep their seniority and pay scale parity. There are many newly qualified teachers who can’t get teaching posts because of this ridiculous situation.
@Chaotic State: public sector job rules are as dark and mysterious as the social welfare system. If you were the right age at the right time and knew the right people who knew people to help you learn the loop holes which existed it would certainly have gotten you very far in the sector with a cozy number. Not as many today but back in mid 90′s dear god a lad with half an intercert with the right neighbour would have made a board of management!
The low ballers of middle isle Ireland.
They will have to ship in teachers from India soon like that what’s be done in every other job, no Irish will be left in this rip off country
The only one’s benefitting from this system are property and land owners
Unless parents stop trying to dictate how teachers teach and raise their kids to behave in public, there will continue to be a teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
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