Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I will be as brief as possible because I know that everybody is tired and it is late at this stage. I have met Age Action, Alone and other advocacy groups for older people. Dr. O'Connor spoke about 44% of older people living in poverty. We deal with this every day on the front line in our offices. I deal with older people who are trying to decide whether to have fuel or food. Mr. Lynch spoke about community welfare officers and supplementary welfare payments. The difficulty I hear about in my office is that people are waiting for weeks on end after submitting the forms and paperwork. They are becoming disillusioned to the point that they feel nobody cares. We really need to be doing something about this. I have no doubt that community welfare officers are inundated with work. To even try to get an appointment with them at this stage is shocking. From the point of view of older persons, who come to my door as I am Sinn Féin's spokesperson on older persons, we need to be addressing the issues more readily.

I agree with the point on the bonus for disability and other bonuses that people should be getting in the cost-of-living crisis. A disability does not go away when people turn 66. If anything, it progresses to the next level. We are doing a disservice to people. We are not looking after them. They are the backbone of our communities and we need to address this in a better way. My rant is over and I have several questions. I understand the witnesses and members are tired. What I really want to know is if the witnesses were to prioritise two recommendations for implementation, what would they be and why?