A standard to stop being invisible

Every day in our country, seven million people devote a few hours of their day to caring for a family member who suffers from a chronic disease or lives with a disability. In some cases it is only a few hours, but mostly it is an all-encompassing commitment. Parents who have had to give up some or all of their work; children overwhelmed by the care of a parent often at the limit of affordability. These are individuals who out of love and dedication perform a task for which, if they were not there, the state would have to take over. They are the caregivers, figures who are complex in that they combine service and care, and who until now have been almost voiceless. It is as if this complex identity (family members or workers?) has made it difficult to categorise them by depriving them of legal and economic recognition. Today without a salary, tomorrow without a pension. Today without protection, tomorrow also. And above all invisible. Invisible in spite of the evidence that by solving the structural deficiencies of the public system, caregivers, according to one of the associations that groups them together, generate with their activity an economic value between 2.5 and 3% of the Italian GDP.

In recent weeks, the Minister for Disabilities, Alessandra Locatelli, announced a bill that aims to give recognition to this role. The contents will become clearer when the text is taken to the Council of Ministers in January after the approval of the manoeuvre, to begin its parliamentary process thereafter. However, the main and characterising elements have already been clarified to the extent that they were the focus of a question time that saw the opposition express quite a few criticisms.

At the moment, it is mainly the amount of the economic recognition that is in the crosshairs, both because it sets a prerequisite - in other words, to be entitled to it, one must have an Isee threshold of 15,000 euro or not be working or, if one is working, not earn more than 3,000 euro gross per year - and because the size of the quarterly amount is considered to be very small: 1,200, 400 per month.

Two facts are in favour of the minister's intervention: the text puts an end to at least a decade of unsuccessful attempts, and the envisaged coverage is 257 million, of which 207 million from the Budget Bill and 50 million from the Fund for policies in favour of persons with disabilities. In any case, there is a significant aspect in this passage that can also overcome the necessary dialectic between the parties: the shift of the issue from the private dimension, the family, to the public dimension, the community.