Unpaid help for a family member or friend with a disability or health problem was being provided by nearly 150,000 carers, mainly middle-aged females in rural areas, throughout the State in 2002, writes Christine Newman.
New figures were published on disability and carers yesterday by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) based on the 2002 Census.
They showed that 148,754 carers aged 15 years or over were providing regular unpaid help for a family member or friend at home with a long-term illness, health problem or disability. Of those, the number providing care for 43 hours or more a week was 40,526. The largest group was 84,862 who were giving one to 14 hours a week.
Carers were more prevalent in rural than urban areas. Two-thirds of carers, or 91,000, were women, over half of whom were in their 40s and 50s. One in 10 women aged 40 to 50 years was reported to be a carer.
Many carers also had jobs outside the home, predominantly in the caring professions, such as health workers at 7.8 per cent, social workers 7.6 per cent and teachers 7.3 per cent.
Two-thirds of the 85,000 carers who worked outside the home provided care for up to two hours a day and worked in their jobs about 37 hours a week.
Broken down into areas, Roscommon had the highest proportion of carers at 5.9 per cent while Waterford city and Galway city at 4.1 per cent had the lowest.
Overall, 8.3 per cent of the population, almost 324,000 persons, had a long-lasting health problem or disability, according to the figures in the disability section.
The incidence of disability was higher among females than males and was age-related, with nearly two-thirds of those with a disability aged 50 or over.
Disability rates varied throughout the State, with a high of 11.5 per cent for Limerick city to 6.1 per cent for Fingal. Rural areas had slightly fewer persons with a disability than urban locations at 8 per cent compared with 8.5 per cent.
Of the towns with a population of 1,500 or more, Portrane, Thomastown, Castlerea, Kilrush and Ballinasloe recorded the highest instances of disability.