The social welfare system does not support families in a case where someone gives up work to care for a loved one who is ill.
That's according to the co- founder of the Cavan-Monaghan Palliative Care Fund.
Every year, the Cavan-Monaghan Palliative Care Fund seeks to improve the quality of life for patients with a life limiting illness, and their families.
Jimmy O'Donnell, who is originally from Belturbet, co-founded the fund in the early 1990s'.
Speaking on the Joe Finnegan Show this morning he described his own family experiences with cancer.
The Co. Cavan man explained how a morphine pump helped to relieve his father's pain during illness.
Mr. O'Donnell fundraised to purchase syringe pumps to help families across the region before setting up the local palliative fund.
He said that the fund has taken on "a life of its own" and that it has "grown exponentially."
Mr. O'Donnell described some of the situations he encounters at this time of year.
He said: "In a case where 'Mary' gets cancer, God forbid, and 'Johnny' has to give up work to look after her, there is no social welfare system.
"Despite what you're told, to support someone to look after their husband. Very quickly, cancer and end of life, regardless of the disease, is quickly followed by poverty in some cases.
"Things like ESB bills, phone bills, home heating oil, the ordinary everyday things that we can take for granted, they can become monstrous to families.
"It is regular at this time of year that a nurse will lift the phone and say, 'Jimmy, I was in a house this morning, I could see my breath. I did a bit of digging and discovered, the family hasn't had heating oil for a month or six weeks'," Mr. O'Donnell added.
