Extra funds available for security alert systems for elderly
The €114 annual allowance to almost 400,000 recipients, mostly pensioners, will be stopped in January and lead to savings of €44m, the coalition has said.
Concern has been raised by advocates for the elderly that phone landlines could be disconnected without the fund and this would then sever panic button systems in homes.
Active Retirement Ireland says the telephone allowance is used by many older people who lived alone or with frail dependents. Their phones were linked to personal alarm systems, it says.
Mr Hogan said yesterday that cabinet ministers had committed to increasing a separate fund in his department, which covers a special pendent alarm for elderly people. It costs €2m annually to fund.
“We’re reviewing that particular situation now in light of the budget where a fixed telephone line won’t be appropriate for people.
“We are certainly anxious to ensure that new technology, that this pendent or alarm is fixed to a mobile phone.
“We are expecting that the minister for public expenditure and minister for finance might have additional euro to give us in order to advance that senior alert programme and expand it in 2014.”
Eamon Timmins of Age Action Ireland said most elderly people using the pendant alarm system were dependent on a landline phone connection.
He said: “The vast majority using pendant alarms work off landlines and that is why the landline is so important.
“If this system had to be replaced, I don’t know how cost effective this would be, and who would pay for a replacement system.”
