Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As Members will be aware, this week has been designated Positive Aging Week. People are living longer. The Budget Statement will be announced in two weeks time and we will be looking for a fair budget for older people, a budget that recognises the contributions made in the past decades by more than 600,000 workers, those who worked in the home and in business who are all now pensioners.

The income provided by the State old age pension and the household benefit package today is still less than it was in 2009. Cuts to income supports such as the fuel allowance, the telephone allowance, combined with rising prices and new taxes are driving even more older people into poverty. Waiting lists for home help services are growing rapidly and result in the failure to provide decent home care. An old age pensioner with a medical card must pay €2.50 for each item that is dispensed on prescription, and this can be up to €25 a month for those on a lot of medication. We need to see more support for older people. We need to increase the number of home help hours to provide the service to an additional 22,500 people in 2018 and also we need to introduce a reliable programme to support 16,000 older people to live independently. I think that is crucial. As we know, people are living longer and the services are not there. We need to ensure in this budget that we provide a service for all elderly people, the people who contributed by paying their taxes. I hope that people will support this suggestion, as I believe we need to do so.