Postcard campaign to reverse telephone cut-off for older people in Budget 2014

» John Hedges & Mark Moloney

‘Older people rely on the telephone as an essential lifeline: for their alarm, to keep in touch with friends, relatives, health services and community groups’

A POSTCARD CAMPAIGN calling on Fine Gael and the Labour Party to restore the telephone allowance for older people axed in Budget 2014 has been launched by rural-based Sinn Féin TDs.

Martin Ferris, Michael Colreavy and Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh rolled out the campaign within 48 hours of Fine Gael and Labour TDs backing the cut-off.

Older people will lose the €9.50 a month telephone allowance, amounting to €114 a year.

Age Action Ireland said that the abolition of the phone allowance will hit those most dependent on it to keep in touch – people who are housebound, those living alone and in remote areas.

“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,” Eamon Timmins of Age Action said.

Launching the Sinn Féin postcard campaign to reverse the cut, West of Ireland Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh said at the Dáil:

“This Budget has hit older people particularly hard.

“Older people rely on the telephone as an essential lifeline. They need it for their alarm, to keep in touch with friends and relatives and, of course, the health services and community groups.

“This cut comes on top of a range of cuts affecting older people, particularly in rural areas, such as the cut to rural transport, loss of services and additional costs such as prescription charges.

“We are call on people to ‘Press the Alarm for the Elderly’.  We have printed 25,000 postcards which will be distributed across rural Ireland calling on people to raise this issue in the local media and to lobby their elected representatives to have this cut and other cuts reversed.”

He added that Sinn Féin put forward proposals in its Alternative Budget that would have reduced the deficit in a fair way without putting the burden on the most vulnerable in society such as rural older people.