Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Kelleher on tabling this motion. The people we are seeking to represent tonight are elderly people, many of whom have retired having played their part, paid their dues and are now trying to live out their twilight years with some degree of comfort, security and decency. This is not, however, the case in respect of every elderly person. There are exceptions. Only last week my constituency colleague, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, proudly announced in a local newspaper that he intends to stand for election to Dáil Éireann in 2016 at the ripe young age of 74 years. Good luck to him. He is an exception.

The actions of this Government over the past two and a half years would appear to presume that the elderly are a vast untapped resource or crock of gold to be accessed each time it needs to raise money. The reality could not be more different. Seven out of ten pensioners live exclusively on the State pension. Of the 30% who do not, many have small private pensions, which are even smaller now as a result of the pension levy which was supposed to end next year but instead has been increased and expanded. Some 57% of elderly people in this country suffer from a chronic illness, one third of whom suffer from a disability. The reality for many elderly people in this country is poverty, cold, inadequate diet, loneliness, isolation and despair.

It is salutary to reflect on what has happened to the elderly under the social welfare code during the two and a half years since this Government took office. During the noughties, covering the period 2001-09 inclusive, the old age pension was increased in actual terms by 65%. When one strips out the official figure for inflation of 25%, there was a real increase of 40%. I wish it could have been more. The elderly deserved more. A 40% increase in purchasing power was not a bad start. When the crash overtook us and austerity became the reality the then Government was forced to introduce a number of austerity budgets and to take some hard decisions. However, the elderly were protected under the social welfare code. There was no diminution whatever in the old age pension and ancillary benefits were preserved, which ancillary benefits had been increased and improved in conjunction with the pension increases between 2001 and 2009.

Let us look at what has happened since. The method of calculation for the contributory old age pension has been changed, and not in favour of the pensioner. I know of pensioners who have lost up to 50% of what they would have obtained under the previous method of calculation.

It was a straight money-saving exercise.

The transition pension is abolished from 1 January. People who are compulsorily retired at 65 will now have to persuade the social welfare office that they are available and fit for work. Perhaps they will be offered one of those new training courses at 65 years of age and they will be compelled to take up whatever they are offered in order to get jobseeker's benefit until they reach the age of 66. The free electricity allowance has been emasculated. In last year's budget alone, €84 million was taken out of the household benefit package, most of that from the free ESB allowance at a time when ESB prices are going up in leaps and bounds, along with the cost of fuel. Last year, the process also began of dismantling the free telephone rental allowance, and that process was completed in this budget.

In the programme for Government - not one of those manifestos that the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, tells us mean nothing anyway - the Government is committed to tackling fuel poverty. What has the Government done? It has reduced the fuel allowance from 32 weeks to 26 weeks, which is something that strikes directly at the elderly. In addition, the Government has reduced the respite care grant. I am only referring to measures in the social welfare area. Deputy Kelleher averted to the change in medical cards for the elderly, the increase in prescription charges by 500%, even though that charge was supposed to be abolished, and capping tax relief for people who are paying private insurance, people trying to look after themselves because they do not trust the State system. Who would blame them? The older a person is, the more likely the person will be affected. Home help has been slashed by 1 million hours last year. We have seen the introduction of the carbon tax and property tax, which has to be paid at double the rate it was paid last year, often by people on €230 per week with no account of ability to pay. We have seen the pension levy introduced and extended for people who are thrifty enough to look after themselves. We have seen the gradual erosion of the nursing home support scheme. Finally, we have seen the abolition of the bereavement grant.

I have mentioned 17 measures, but that list is by no means exhaustive. Any objective observer looking at this would have to conclude that this has amounted to a relentless assault on a section of the population, many of whom are vulnerable, poor and ill. Somebody once said that growing old is like being increasingly punished for a crime one did not commit. Whoever committed crimes against this State, it was not the elderly and they should not be punished. This debate is a charade to some extent, because no less a person than the leader of the Labour Party, the Tánaiste, said that no matter what is said tonight, no matter what arguments are advanced, no matter what case is made or examples, it is all irrelevant and the cuts stand, and if people do not like it, they can lump it. If that is what the leader of the Labour Party meant when he promised a democratic revolution before the election, then God help Ireland.

I was talking to a woman in her 80s yesterday in Limerick who was living in a very cold house. Her husband is dead 20 years and her only company is a little dog which she keeps as a pet. She told me that she has to go to the dog shelter in Limerick next week to hand over the dog. She can no longer afford to feed him because she needs to save the money out of her €230 per week pension to pay the property tax next year. Somebody like that must be gagging when they listen to the likes of the guff we heard from the Tánaiste this evening, a man who is paid almost €200,000 a year, with his spouse in another big State job on over €100,000 a year. It is very difficult for poor pensioners to listen to this.

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