Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)

I had a case recently. I was working with a lady who is housebound. She has a number of relations but none of them wanted to become her ward of court or to support her. What options are in place there? We were trying to contact the bank. She received a letter from the bank and she was in an awful state. She actually did not have to do anything about it - it was one of those standard letters - but it really caused that lady anxiety. She was even asking the next-door neighbour if he would collect her pension for her. Are there options for somebody like that?

The other thing is that access to any information or anything is all online. People like that lady are not able to deal with that. I spent two hours in that lady's house trying to sort out different issues for her but I was conscious that I did not have any rights, as such. Even when I rang the bank, I had to get her to say that I could speak on her behalf because she was trying to clarify what the issue was.