THE Taoiseach has defended the new private pension levy as Age Action warns that it will cause “huge financial uncertainty for retired people who had made plans based on a defined income”.

EFFORTS to tackle the state’s spiralling drugs bill will see patients on medication facing a double hit.

The HSE is reportedly cutting back on basic essential aids for elderly and disabled patients, like bedpans, drip stands and toilet frames.

Age Action Ireland is warning of mass protests and huge opposition to any Government moves to means test the State pension.

THREE robbers beat a pensioner because they didn’t believe she had handed them her entire savings.

THREE robbers beat a pensioner because they didn’t believe she had handed them her entire savings.

Three men who tied an elderly woman to a fence and attacked her during a violent robbery were tonight being hunted by detectives.

Older people say they are very concerned that Government cuts will have a negative impact on their basic standard of living.

FARM families could be hardest hit by the new Nursing Home Support Scheme because there is no cap on the non-cash assets of people seeking a nursing home bed, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is utterly out of his depth in his current role in charge of the nation’s purse strings, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore claimed today.

EFFORTS are to be made to bring an extra 7,000 workers with disabilities into employment by 2010, but that still means close to two-thirds of people with disabilities will remain outside the workforce.