Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday's Irish Independenthad a headline, "Loneliness, cash woes push elderly to phone for help". The article stated:

Eamon Timmins, head of advocacy at Age Action Ireland, [...] said that many elderly people in society were feeling more isolated than ever before. "We have just finished a national consultation and it is a listening exercise where we go around the country. There is a lot of anxiety out there. Anxiety about the future, new charges, and people's ability to pay them on fixed income and fixed pensions.

A schedule of expenditure released by the Irish League of Credit Unions for 2013, entitled What's Left, outlined the average spend of an individual per week. With a weekly State pension of €230 per week, older people have an average residual amount of only €34 for other items after their living expenses, taking into account cutbacks and other new charges.
The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, has started a discussion on the easing of austerity, saying that he intended to widen income tax bands to take more people out of the higher tax bracket as soon as the State could afford it. Immediately after Deputy James Reilly became the Minister for Health, he promised to abolish the 50 cent prescription charge. Three years later, he has increased it five times from the original 50 cent to its present value of €2.50. Surely to God our priority for the elderly should be to restore the telephone allowance, reduce prescription charges and waive property tax and the future water tax that is coming down the line. That would prove we were a decent society.
In the Visitors' Gallery are seated good friends of mine, Nancy Moran, Mary McEntaggart and Imelda Harding from Sandymount. Also seated there are senior citizens from the Lucan-Palmerstown area who are led by the local election candidate Caitríona McClean. I have heard their stories and I am disgusted that the sickest older people in our society are being targeted. The Irish people do not realise that approximately 55,000 people over 70 years have had their medical cards taken away by the last two budgets of this Government. Common sense would tell one that the removal of medical cards from older people will not save money in the long term. Instead, it will stop older people from taking vital medication and going to the doctor. If they end up in hospital as a result of this measure no money will be saved; quite the opposite. These cuts have been made by a heartless Government.
Finally, I wish to refer to the serious issue of how older people are treated in society. The subject has been spoken about by the revolutionary Pope Francis, who felt compelled to intervene. Last November, he said at a mass:

We live in a time when the elderly do not count. It's awful to say, but they are discarded. Because they are a nuisance to us.

He also called on the faithful to remember those elderly who live in retirement homes, especially those who have been abandoned by their families. I reiterate that these cuts were made by a heartless Government.