No public commitment on alarm fund U-turn

The Department of the Environment is refusing to publicly commit to a U-turn on plans to halve its budget for personal security alarms for the elderly — yet Fine Gael TDs are being told a different story.

The TDs are telling constituents the “minister has agreed to find monies from other parts of his department and put them towards this scheme, to bring it back up to the €2.24m level”.

There was fury among age rights advocates when it emerged the budget for seniors’ personal alarms was being cut to €1.15m this year, down from €2.24m last year.