Elderly people will be forced to go to moneylenders to bury loved ones, rally hears

Elderly people will be forced to go to moneylenders to help pay funeral expenses for loved ones as a result of a series of cutbacks in the budget, a rally of around 500 pensioners was told in Cork today.

Organiser Tom Byrne of the Glanmire Active Retirement Association addressed a rally attended by pensioners from Cork and Kerry in Emmet Place before they marched through Cork city centre to City Hall to highlight their grievances.

“Today’s march is to show the government that we may be old and feeble but we’re not underground yet - we’re alive and we’re going to be around for a while yet and unless there is a change, there will be protest marches like this around the country - enough is enough.”

Mr Byrne said older people had been impacted in numerous ways in last month’s budget including the lowering of the threshold for medical cards and the increase in prescription charges from € 1.50 to € 2.50 which was causing huge distress to older people.

The scrapping of the bereavement grant was also causing huge worry and with funeral costs averaging around € 4,000, some have already spoken about having to go to moneylenders to obtain the money to bury a loved one, he said.

In addition the scrapping of telephone allowances, cuts to the number of home help hours and to carer’s allowance payments were all impacting in a serious way on older people who had worked hard all their lives and played no part in Ireland’s economic downturn.

“The lowering of the medical card threshold means that an estimated 30,000 elderly people will lose their medical card - all of us during our lifetime, we paid everything that was asked of us and there was never a complaint but this is how we are being treated,” he said.

“I know people with MS, diabetes, in wheelchairs and they’ve had their medical cards taken off them- it’s ridiculous and I say ‘enough is enough’ said Mr Byrne to loud and enthusiastic applause from the crowd.