President Catherine Connolly has said that the contribution of family carers, including young carers "too often goes simply ignored or certainly is insufficiently recognised".
President Connolly told the first ever National Young Carers Conference, which is being held in UCD in Dublin, that family carers in Ireland are providing approximately 19 million hours of unpaid care every week, saving the State an estimated €20 billion per year.
President Connolly, who was elected as the 10th President of Ireland on 25 October last year, was invited to open the conference, which is focusing on the 'The Real Lives of Young Carers'.
The conference is hearing academic research from UCD, UCC and UL, with young carers around Ireland in attendance.
"It has to be acknowledged, the millions of hours of unpaid carers work every week," she said, adding that "it's a staggering sum of money that you're saving the State and for a genuinely thriving economy".
"So, if we're going to describe ourselves as a republic with an economy that's thriving, then we need to build in the value of carers into our economic model," President Connolly said.
There are over 500,000 family carers in Ireland, more than half of whom are balancing care with paid employment, according to the President's office.
The President told the conference that the more than half a million carers were the "backbone of society" and it could "not function without their contribution".
