On 4 April 2023, The Alzheimer Society of Ireland launched “The Cost of Living While Caring: A brief report on the financial situation of family carers of people with dementia in Ireland”, in collaboration with Family Carers Ireland. The report highlights significant financial challenges faced by family carers of people with dementia. Over 180,000 people in Ireland are or have been carers for a family member or partner with dementia, with many more providing support and care in other ways.
The Cost of Living While Caring report highlights the financial challenges faced by 129 family carers of people with dementia and is based on anonymised dementia-specific data collected by Family Carers Ireland as part of The State of Caring 2022 report. The Irish health and social care system depends on family carers who provide the lion’s share of care to people with dementia. The value of this work to the State is estimated to be in the region of EUR 804 million per annum. T
he report provides a picture of the costs of caring in Ireland in 2022 for family carers of people living with dementia:
• 55% of carers said they have difficulty making ends meet. Notably, 12% of family carers state they have great difficulty making ends meet
• 17.8% of family carers stated that they were cutting back on household essentials
• 22.5% have cut back on seeing friends and family
• In some cases, financial difficulties were so impactful that people had fallen into arrears with mortgage payments (4.7%) and utility bills (5.4%).
The ASI is calling on the Irish Government to introduce a range of measures to provide financial support for family carers who are struggling in the midst of the current cost of living crisis.
To read the report in full, please visit: https://alzheimer.ie/creating-change/awareness-raising/current-campaigns/