Protest rallying call over cuts against elderly

A rallying call has gone out to elderly advocacy groups to gather the troops and start making banners for a massive protest in Dublin next week over budget cuts against elderly people.

The protest is being organised by the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament as grey anger mounts over “attacks on senior citizens” in last Tuesday’s budget.

The rally, on the fifth anniversary of the protest which led to a reversal in Fianna Fáil’s planned cuts to elderly medical cards, will take place at the Dáil.

According to the Senior Citizens Parliament, old people are frightened and angry at a rise in prescription charges from €1.50 to €2.50, the lowering of medical card thresholds for more than 35,000 over 70s, the reduction of tax relief on health insurance, and the abolition of the bereavement grant.

“The parliament has been inundated with phone calls and emails from older people and their families on these matters. We are actively campaigning to seek to get Government to reverse these decisions,” CEO Mairead Hayes said.

The parliament called on the elderly and their families to lobby local representatives, especially those from Fine Gael and Labour, and to call to their constituency clinics over the weekend. They are being advised to “seek to speak to them politely but firmly and impress on them the concerns you have regarding these proposals” and to start making “colourful and imaginative posters”.

The parliament, which is being strongly supported by the likes of Age Action, say in two years, the over 70s medical card eligibility level has been cut by €300 gross for a couple and €250 gross for a single person, the prescription charge has increased by 500% and the telephone allowance has been abolished.

Age Action spokesman Eamonn Timmins said: “It is very sad that the most vulnerable will not be able to march as they physically can’t leave their homes and march due to illness, so we are calling on their families to speak out for them by joining the rally.”

Earlier this week, the opposition and elderly groups accused the Government of “savagely targeting” pensioners and putting them at risk in their homes as they won’t be able to use life-saving pendant security alarms — now that the telephone allowance is to be cut.

According to Fianna Fáil, the abolition of the telephone allowance will affect more than 394,671 people, including the old, the disabled, and carers.

However, Social Protection Minister Joan Burton denied pensioners had been singled out and said they “had their key entitlements protected and they compared extremely favourably with some of the best off societies in Europe”.