Poverty risk - Save elderly from cuts

Some 11.1% of pensioners in this country were at risk of poverty in 2008.

This was still statistically too high, but the figure has more than halved in a relatively short time — dramatically down from 24.7% in 2004.

It is also appreciably lower than the figure for Northern Ireland, where 23% of pensioners are at significant risk of poverty. The figures indicate that older people in the Republic are better off than their Northern counterparts, but this is no cause to be complacent.