It is time to ask about how caring Ireland really is. Ireland’s population cohort aged 80+ is projected to quadruple to over half a million people by the middle of this century, creating a growing need for home care services.

By Caroline Crowley and Carol Power

The rise in this age-group has already outpaced the rise in the workforce. Over 5,000 older people who are approved for home care are waiting for care workers.

As care work in Ireland is increasingly outsourced to the for-profit sector, price competition drives a “race to the bottom” of precarious contracts and poor terms and conditions for workers.

With the older population growing and care workers exiting the sector, family care becomes even more essential. Addressing these challenges calls for joined-up thinking.

  • It also raises questions such as:
  • How can a more effective care system be developed?
  • How can a system that fails to value and reward care workers survive?

How can families support older members while trying to make ends meet in an economy driven by individualism, competition and extraction?

Wellbeing needs

Our wellbeing depends on our needs being met throughout life and that happens through care.

Long taken-for-granted by a “distorted economy”, care is a gift that flows through relationships with loved ones in households, unpaid volunteers in communities, and nature herself. The great unravelling of the social and natural fabric on which the economy (and life) depends reflects the existential risk of such care blindness.

Research findings

Care co-operatives are organisations based on values of self-help, democracy, equity and solidarity and their business model focuses on people, not profit, combining quality care with fulfilling work. To raise awareness and stimulate discussion, a UCC project called CO-AGE, funded by Research Ireland, examined this social model of care.

The research sought to answer the question: “Do care co-operatives have a role to play in meeting future care needs?”
In support of the CO-AGE research, the Great Care Co-op in Dublin and Equal Care Co-op in Yorkshire, England, shared details about their work with the UCC researchers.

Then, CO-AGE explored the approach of these co-operatives with older people, family carers, care workers, and managers.

Care co-operatives

The research found that re-imagining an integrated and resilient care system in Ireland calls for designing a more holistic continuum of care – one centred on a social care approach. The co-operative model fits with this vision as care co-ops do not have to maximise profits for external shareholders. Instead, surpluses are re-invested in their mission and members. Since care co-ops are embedded in communities, this enriches local areas too.

But the co-operative may be compromised if it must conform with existing care systems. Also, social innovators attracted by this model may be dissuaded by its unfamiliarity or cumbersome regulations.

The CO-AGE project highlighted the need for a supportive ecosystem to champion care co-ops by raising awareness and securing funding, along with training members and workers.

Such an ecosystem will depend on the State showing care by developing the legislation, regulation, funding and contracts needed to weave a tapestry of community-led care co-ops across Ireland. In that regard, Sláintecare’s new HSE health regions and the Commission on Care for Older People offer timely opportunities.

You can freely download the report (138 pages) here: https://bit.ly/UCC-CO-AGE-CareCoops