Mr. Se?n Moynihan:

I thank the Chair and the committee members for inviting us today. In 2023 ALONE provided support to over 36,000 older people, 12,000 of whom were new to our services. The number of support interventions we provided in finance almost doubled in 2023 compared to 2022. Approximately 2,775 people newly assessed by ALONE indicated that they had issues with finance. Among them almost half the issues were about benefits and entitlements. ALONE has actively campaigned for over ten years to have the State pension and other social welfare payments benchmarked and we are happy to see them included in the roadmap for social inclusion. The lack of progress in delivering this remains somewhat frustrating. This is needed for the older people who solely rely on the State pension and live in or are in constant threat of poverty while their housing and other costs spiral. These people form the majority of whom ALONE works with everyday.

Generally issues with benefits and entitlements mean that people do not know they are entitled to a particular support and-or need assistance to fill out forms to access the support. Often older people approach us because they are in financial difficulty and it emerges that they are not receiving what they are entitled to. By the time an organisation like ours supports them to secure these benefits they are often in dire need.

In addition to asking the committee to hold the Government to account for this promise, we will additionally highlight three issues with means testing that prevents older people from accessing vital supports. They are: how means-testing and various eligibility criteria add to the complexity and inaccessibility of the social welfare system; the inadequate communication of changing means thresholds for social welfare supports; and, finally, how household means testing can result in ineligibility for supports that people are entitled to.

First, one of the major impacts of means testing is that older people simply do not know that they qualify for certain payments because they are not universally supplied. It is not written on an application for your pension that there may be other benefits that you are entitled to and you do not receive a letter in the post to tell you that the eligibility criteria for supports has changed.

Often people assume they do not qualify for additional supports even when they are experiencing severe financial difficulty. The social protection system is not designed for accessibility with older people in mind. In fact, often it throws up barriers to people accessing support. The range of supports available from the Department of Social Protection and other Departments all require different forms. Some have means tests while some do not. The means eligibility varies. Some are applicable at different ages and the applications are sent by many organisations and Departments. In addition, supports that appear similar to someone not used to them also have very different criteria.

The complexity prevents older people from accessing supports for which they are eligible. It has a severe impact on older people with lower literacy and numeracy skills, including digital literacy, who are now primarily directed to welfare.ie for information and it also severely impacts older people living alone who may not have a family member to advocate for or support them with these complex tasks. Both of these cohorts are likely to experience poverty and social exclusion anyway and they are doubly excluded by the complexity of applying for support.

Second, when the income thresholds change for increases, it is not sufficiently communicated by the Department. We saw this, for example, when the income threshold for fuel allowance was increased. Thousands of older people who were expected to become eligible for fuel allowance after these changes are still not claiming it.

Third, the means testing is calculated based on household rather than individual income. We see a negative impact resulting from this, for example, in cases where older people have been unable to access fuel allowance due to adult children moving back into their parents' home, often to save for a housing deposit, bringing their household means above the means threshold even though the adult child may not be contributing.

In addition, the means testing for the non-contributory pension for couples sufficiently impacts individual autonomy and independence in older age, not to mention financial security. For example, we are working with a woman in her eighties who lives alone in the west of Ireland. She cannot access the non-contributory pension in her own right as her husband's pension puts her significantly over the means test, even though a significant proportion of that income goes towards her husband's nursing home fees where he moved last year. Having applied earlier last year, she was denied the non-contributory pension, the living lone allowance and the carer's contributory pension. This case highlights many issues with the State pension system, including the lack of support for carers, lack of independence provided for women who work in the home and the unfairness of means testing for the non-contributory pension.

To conclude, if the point of means testing is to limit eligibility and reduce the cost to the State, you can imagine this has been achieved significantly through means testing in its current form, due to the significant administration costs accrued. Furthermore, it prevents older people from accessing supports they are eligible for and otherwise should be entitled to. In ALONE's view that streamlining of eligibility criteria and the reducing of the levels of means testing used across entitlements available from this Department should significantly impact older people in the ability to know and access the supports they are entitled to while reducing the administrative cost burden. This should also be achieved through initiatives such as benchmarking the State pension and ensuring universal accessibility.

I thank members for this invitation and their time today. I am happy to answer any questions.