Ms Naomi Feely:

Good morning. On behalf of Age Action, I thank the committee for the invitation to speak to it about our recommendations to the Minister for Social Protection. I am the senior policy officer at Age Action and lead the organisation's policy team, which includes responding to a wide variety of policy issues that impact on the lives of older people.

Capturing the lived experience of older people in Ireland to ensure our recommendations will have a positive impact on their lives is of critical importance to this work. Earlier this year, over April and May, our policy team consulted with Age Action Ireland members throughout Ireland in preparation for our submission for budget 2017. This included a series of meetings around the country, along with distributing a survey through our magazine, Ageing Matters, and among our other networks. Through this process, we heard from more than 400 older people and I would like to share with the committee some of the responses we received.

Catherine told us:

I cannot afford either life or home insurance. I have to go to bed early to save on heating and electricity. My husband passed away last year and I still have not paid off his funeral expenses. We did have life insurance but they cut it because we could not keep up the payments.

Thomas described the reality of trying to make ends meet:

The State pension is too low, especially since the extra charges were thrown at us. I find it hard to live on €233 a week and pay the property tax, along with the everyday expenses like oil, phone, food and clothing, and if one is lucky, like me, to own a car, which is ten years old, that too can become a headache with rising costs of insurance and motor tax, along with NCT bills and upkeep of the vehicle. It is certainly hard. That is my opinion.

Deirdre also wrote to usand stated:

My mother cannot afford to heat her home. She lives in one room, heating it with a fire which she does not light until the afternoon. She goes to bed at 9.30 in the winter to save fuel. Even with help to buy fuel she cannot afford to turn on the central heating for fear of a big bill she could not pay.

Between January 2009 and January 2015 the weekly incomes of older people dependent on the State pension and secondary income supports, such as the household benefits package and the fuel allowance, fell by €13.18 per week. Research we are currently carrying out indicates tens of thousands of pensioners had their pensions or what they should be entitled to drastically reduced following changes to the eligibility criteria for new entrants in 2012. According to the latest official poverty statistics from the Central Statistics Office, 10.3% of people aged 65 years and over were "at risk" of poverty in 2014. This means that one in ten older people was living on less than 60% of the median income, which is less than €11,000 per annum. In 2014, some 14.3% of those aged over 65 years experienced deprivation or were unable to afford basic items such as replacing worn furniture. According to Social Justice Ireland, this is more than 85,000 older people or approximately the combined population of Bray town and Limerick city. In 2009, the last year in which the State pension was increased prior to 2016, the deprivation rate was much lower at 9.5%.

Budget 2016, which included a €3 increase in the weekly rate of the State pension and restoration of 75% of the Christmas bonus, was the first to try to ease some of the hardship inflicted on older people over a number of successive austerity budgets but it fell far short. Almost half of the income lost between 2009 and 2015 has still not been restored, including the telephone allowance; the number of weeks for which the fuel allowance is paid; and the decrease in the value of the electricity element of the household benefits package.

What needs to happen in budget 2017? Earlier this year, older voters were promised by many of those candidates and parties seeking their support a minimum of a €25 increase in the State pension over the next five years. Budget 2017 is the first opportunity to make clear to almost 600,000 people over the age of 65 that the commitments made to them will be honoured. The State pension is a critical, and often the only, source of income for older people. According to the OECD, up to three quarters of a household's disposable income for those aged over 65 is made up of public transfers. The national pensions framework, published in 2010, commits to "sustain the value of the State pension at 35% of average weekly earnings" to prevent poverty among older people. Preliminary CSO figures for the first quarter of 2016 indicate that average weekly earnings are €707.99, which would indicate a State pension of €247.80, substantially higher than the current top rate of the contributory pension.

We recognise that this rate will not be achieved immediately. However, budget 2017 must see a determined effort from the Government towards achieving the target set in the national pensions framework.

We are asking the Minister for Social Protection to increase the weekly rate of the State pension by €5 in budget 2017, at a cost of €130 million, as well as ensuring the final 25% of the Christmas bonus is restored as a double-week payment for Christmas 2016 for all social welfare recipients, which will cost approximately €67 million.

The second issue we feel needs to be addressed is energy poverty. We welcome the publication by the Government earlier this year of a strategy to combat energy poverty which will act as a roadmap to tackle this issue across multiple Departments and Government agencies. The issue of energy poverty is particularly acute for older people for a number of reasons. There is, among other issues, a tendency to spend more time in the home, a greater likelihood of living in older, less-energy efficient homes and a greater risk of cardiovascular and respiratory illness from cold and damp houses. Given these issues, Age Action Ireland particularly welcomes the initiation of the warmth and well-being pilot programme as part of the new strategy. We note that the long-term benefits of the scheme and the collaborative approach that is being undertaken between the Department with responsibility for communications, climate action and environment and health professionals.

While such programmes offer a longer-term solution to this issue, consumer behaviour among older people can also be detrimental to their energy security. Lower rates of access to the Internet mean older people are often unable to avail of discounts only available to customers willing to transact their business online. As a result, older people do not benefit significantly from increased competition in the energy market. For those on low incomes, therefore, supplementary payments such as the fuel allowance are a vital support. In recent budgets, the period for which this payment has been made was reduced from 26 weeks to 20 weeks, but winter did not get any shorter. We are calling for budget 2017 to begin to reverse this cut to the fuel allowance by extending the scheme by four weeks, at a cost of approximately €35 million. Data from the Central Statistics Office also indicate that half of older people have oil-fired central heating. For those dependent on small, fixed incomes, it can be difficult to pay for a fill of oil, particularly those who receive the fuel allowance as a weekly payment. We have urged the Department previously, as have other colleagues, to provide people with the option of receiving this payment in one lump sum.

I am conscious of the remit of the committee. However, I would like to advise it that we have also made submissions to five other Departments, as well as writing to the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform. While we have called for an increase in income supports for older people within the context of the work of the committee, this can be negatively impacted by cuts or changes to the eligibility criteria of supports from other Departments. For example, an increase in the State pension might cause a pensioner to lose his or her medical card due to the income threshold. Decisions made by one Department have repercussions elsewhere and it is essential that this is understood and action taken to ensure gains made by older people in one part of the budget do not result in losses elsewhere.

Age Action Ireland has repeatedly called for a cross-departmental approach to addressing an ageing population in order to ensure that the focus on planning for an ageing society does not fall on the expenditure Departments - namely, the Departments of Social Protection and Health - alone. We advocate that it also comes under the consideration of programmes in other Departments, such as those with responsibility for housing, planning, community and local government in terms of resourcing the housing adaptation grant, which enables older people to remain in their homes for longer, and the Department with responsibility for communications, climate action and environment in terms of addressing the issue of digital exclusion and the issue of energy poverty.