Grey brigade set for march on Dáil
It was pensioner power that stopped the first emergency slump budget in its tracks five years ago when an uprising over cuts to medical cards saw thousands take to the streets. Outrage has been more muted since then, but the seventh successive austerity package will see the silver protesters attempt to occupy the streets outside Leinster House once again and shift Government policy in the process.
A fresh attack on medical cards is at the forefront of fears once more as 35,000 over 70s are to be reduced to GP-only status as the threshold for comprehensive health cover is reduced to €900 a week for a couple and €500 for a single person which is set to raise €25m from the HSE bill critics accuse Dr James Reilly of letting get out of control.
Anger, as well as concern, has also been sparked by the withdrawal of the €9.50 a month telephone grant.
Social Protection Minister Joan Burton’s insistence that resources will be put into providing emergency contact devices for vulnerable pensioners has done little to lift the worry such a move will only add to isolation for the elderly.
Add to this the fact that the budget did not even spare the dead as the abolition of the €850 bereavement grant sent shivers through a strata of society, who by dent of their very age, are closer to the grave than others.
While one senior government official branded the bereavement grant “beer money” in an example of immediate post-budget smugness, pensioners look set to mete out the biggest backlash to the latest austerity package.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny points to the fact weekly payments were preserved along with the travel and TV packages for senior citizens, but the sight of thousands of pensioners on the streets has an emotive impact all of its own.
Ministers claim that compared to other victims of the crash, the elderly have not fared too badly.
Ms Burton used a summer school appearance to try and push this narrative, stating: “Those aged under 45 have been affected much more than those 45 and over, according to recent ESRI research. Younger people suffered far more than older people under all the headings examined by the ESRI, including unemployment, mortgage arrears and negative equity.
Furthermore, the recent NESC report on the wider social dimensions of the crisis found austerity has hit double-income parents more than social welfare recipients and state pensioners. The losses were highest for earning couples with children, at over 11%.
The cost of caring for the country’s elderly is set to be a major political flash point throughout the coming decades as the pensioner population rises — despite frantic Government efforts to try and off set the financial burden by making everyone stay in the workforce longer via later retirement.
With pensions already accounting for 32% of the welfare budget, or about €6.5bn — spending is set to rocket as projections show almost one in four people — 23% — will be aged 65 and over by 2050, well up from 12% now. The rise in life expectancy is already costing the exchequer about €190m more annually in payments.
But senior citizens resent being viewed by Government as a burden, and point to the fact that whatever statistics may claim, they have suffered hardships and feel vulnerable and neglected, and are merely seeking the respect they deserve for building the country through the lean years, only to see everything squandered away by casino capitalists and an inadequate political class in five years of boom madness.
The upshot is that grey liberation is a potent political lobby in this country and one which can only increase in influence as the numbers grow. Politicians fear them because they are loud, proud — and most importantly of all — they vote.
