Ex-pat pensioners 'should be allowed free travel'

Irish pensioners living in the UK should be entitled to free travel so that they can visit home more often, it was claimed today.

The Labour Party will tomorrow launch a St Patrick’s Day postcard campaign to extend Ireland’s Free Travel Scheme to elderly emigrants.

Party leader Pat Rabbitte said: “A 2001 Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants called for measures to facilitate the return of emigrants to Ireland, but unfortunately little has been done to act on this.”

The Irish community in the UK has urged that the free travel service, already available to pensioners in this country, be extended to elderly Irish emigrants when they travel to Ireland.

“This would assist elderly people, many of whom are surviving on meagre incomes, to visit loved ones in this country,” Mr Rabbitte said.

“The overall cost to the Irish Exchequer would be modest but it would be an appropriate gesture of gratitude on behalf of this generation for all the economic assistance provided by emigrants during the difficult economic days of the 50s and 60s.”

To promote the campaign, the Labour Party is printing 30,000 postcards which it will be asking people to post to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Newspapers serving the Irish community in Britain have agreed to help with the distribution of the cards and it is hoped that most of them will be sent over the St Patrick’s Day festival period.