Seanad debates

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

7:00 pm

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Senator Crown made a number of interesting recommendations and suggestions, although I am not sure where he was going with the final question. I share his sympathy with anybody who holds the Minister's brief or that of the Minister for Health but one cannot give a clean bill of health to everything contained in the legislation. I cannot support it. It will cut social welfare benefits to the young, remove mortgage interest relief for the unemployed, cut pension payments and telephone allowances for the elderly, maternity benefits for mothers to be and abolish the bereavement grant. What I do not like about the Bill and Government policy in general - this is not the first Government to engage in this behaviour - is the way in which people who are seen as not being capable of fighting back are often targeted and singled out for additional targeting. I also do not like the way issues are flagged in advance and people are frightened and distressed during the budget planning and announcement and the political triangulation involved.

I do not like the way the Government gives with one hand and takes with the other. For example, there is little point telling older people they can have free GP care if they cannot afford their medicines. There is an astonishing amount of fear and concern among them. I was in touch with the family of a young man who is battling cancer. He has a medical card and he is wondering whether he will lose it. I cannot understand what is going wrong with our system of communications from the highest level downwards when people are exposed to this level of fear. We are told we need to make all these adjustments to exit the bailout. The cuts in the Bill will save the State approximately 4% of the amount it will pay next year in interest payments on the portion of the national debt attributable to bailing out the banks. That is what the suffering in the Bill amounts to in terms of us abiding by the demands of the troika.

The telephone allowance of €9.50 a month will be abolished in the new year while eligibility for the over 70s medical card will be tightened, which will mean tens of thousands of people losing free health care. Approximately 35,000 older people will lose their full medical cards but in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the grey army revolt when pensioners forced a U-turn on a similar issue in 2009, the Government has offered GP care. I have commented on the political approach being taken. The Minister for Health urged pensioners not to worry. He said, "I know that older people may feel they are having something that is being taken away but this has been replaced with the free GP care card so they don't have to worry about the cost of going to a doctor". Has he thought about cost of medication, transport and so on? This cut will cost so much to people.

Age Action Ireland says that the abolition of the telephone allowance will hit those most dependent on it to keep in touch, particularly those who are housebound or live alone or live in remote areas. I agree with the organisation's chief executive Eamon Timmins who said, "This payment was recognition that older people's needs are different from other sections of society and that the phone plays a greater role in keeping older people well". In marginal communities in the west, Border and midlands, older people rely on the telephone as an essential lifeline to the world around them. Many find themselves isolated. It is not like Dublin where people have reliable mobile phone coverage or broadband access, as Senator O'Donovan said. What about older people in Connemara or on the Inishowen Peninsula? People rely on their telephone line for their house alarm or to keep in touch with friends and relatives, the health services and doctors on call. The Government is not only content to reduce the number of Garda stations and run down local services; it is isolating old people further, which is contemptuous. That is what I mean by particular categories of people being singled out unfairly.

This latest cut comes on top of many more. I was struck by the words of an elderly woman I met recently who participated in the protest march outside Leinster House. She was visibly upset about the abolition of the telephone allowance. She lives in an isolated area in County Monaghan. She is widowed and her children have emigrated to Britain and Germany and her means of communicating with them is being attacked as she sees it. These cuts are not only about the monetary impact; it is about how they make people feel and where they leave them in terms of their sense of vulnerability. Does the Minister think that mother can webchat with or Skype her children? She cannot because she does not have broadband coverage, which means she will not have the contact she would like with her children. I wonder whether there is an indifference to the isolation and the mental health dimension to all of these cuts. At a time we have task forces on cyberbullying and increased concern about mental health issues, this seems ill-thought out at best and cynical at worst.

I am sorry about the Government's record on defending older people, in particular, and that these cuts are excessively disproportionate. Prescription charges hit everybody equally but some people are not in an equal position to bear the burden.

Many Members have referred to the abolition of the bereavement grant. Has the Government considered the irony of what is has done? Less well off people should feel entitled to lay a loved one to rest with dignity and not have to resort to borrowing money but politicians who have an interest in attending large numbers of funerals will no doubt continue to collect votes and charge mileage as they do so. This was a particularly shameful thing to do.

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