Decisions taken in the forthcoming Budget to address Ireland’s economic crisis must be taken in a way that also protects the country's most vulnerable people, a charity for older people warned today.
"The focus in the run up to the budget has been on the need to address the country's economic difficulties and restore economic stability," Eamon Timmins of Age Action, told Minister for Social Protection Eamon Ó Cuív at a pre-budget forum in Dublin today.
"But the Government also has a major responsibility to address these issues in a way that also protects the most vulnerable in society. The economic crisis cannot be used as a reason to abandon the most vulnerable of older people who are dependent on the State for their quality of life," he said.
He urged the Government to maintain the State pension at its current level and warned that there should be no question of means-testing the contributory State pension.
"The State pension is a vital support," Mr Timmins said. "Two-thirds of pensioners are dependent on it as their main source of income."
The charity is calling for a €3 per week carbon tax compensation payment for each pensioner household, the restoration of the Christmas bonus and the protection of other supports such as the qualified adult allowance and the over-80s allowance.
One Family, which supports one-parent families, revealed almost a sixth of such families are living in consistent poverty, which is four times the national average of 4.2 per cent.
“More and more lone parents are contacting us because they are having difficulties in making ends meet for their families,” said policy manager Candy Murphy.
“The Government has stated its desire to reduce poverty rates for lone parents and their children and to remove barriers to employment for this vulnerable group,” she said. “We are today calling on the Government to start to make this a reality in 2011 by making modest increases in supports for children in low income families.”
Meanwhile, the Irish Senior Citizens' Parliament stressed the importance of maintaining older people’s purchasing power. It called on Mr Ó Cuív to maintain the current pension, to increase the Living Alone Allowance and to extend it to low income civil service pensioners. The parliament also argued that now is the time to increase the over-80 age allowance by €5.