Oct 17, 2014:

Budget 2015- Active Retirement Ireland: 'Ireland remains very far removed from being the best small country in which to grow old'

"In spite of what many consider a neutral budget today, older people are worse off than they were last year and there is little or no respite on the horizon", according to Peter Kavanagh of Active Retirement Ireland (ARI), speaking after the Budget 2015 announcement today. "After six years of the cumulative effect of cuts, the withdrawal of services and the increased cost of living, the Government can't hold up a freeze in prescription charges and a modest reversal of some cuts as any sort of commitment to alleviating poverty for our older population".

 

 "It would appear from the way older people have been treated since the National Positive Ageing Strategy (NPAS) was published in 2013 that the Government wants nothing to do with making Ireland 'the best small country in the world in which to grow old'", said Kavanagh.

 

ARI has called on the Government to make good on their promise to implement the NPAS, published in 2013, but as yet unacted upon. "Cutting older people's income year upon year is not going to be washed away by a token gesture that is simply not enough to ease the burden. Every day one-in-five older people is being forced to choose between basic necessities which are fundamental human rights, as they can't afford to have a meal with meat every other day or a winter coat when the weather turns cold", he said.

 

Kavanagh continued: "A pensioner living alone has a fixed income from which they will have to find over €650 extra next year to make up the cost of the local property tax, water charges, carbon tax, the lost telephone allowance, the reduced winter fuel allowance, increased prescription charges and an overall hike in the cost of living. While the €100 contribution towards water charges and the part-restoration of the Christmas Bonus will help to offset this additional cost, Fine Gael and Labour cannot expect older people to believe that this Government wants to make Ireland a better place to grow old in."

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