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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 11 Apr 2000

Vol. 517 No. 6

Priority Questions. - Anti-Poverty Strategy.

Thomas P. Broughan

Question:

49 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he will make a statement on the report, Income Deprivation and Well-Being Among Older Irish People, which showed that about 60% of people over the age of 65 live on less than £100 per week and half of elderly households live below the 60% poverty line; and the plans, if any, he has to address the issues identified in this report. [10518/00]

I welcome the report prepared by the ESRI for the National Council on Ageing and Older People, which was made available last November. It covers the period from 1987-97 and, therefore, provides an informative, historical analysis for policymakers. As the report points out, in income terms the position of older people disimproved over the ten year period covered. This is why, on taking office, the Government set ambitious goals to secure the future of our older people.

An Action Programme for the Millennium set a target old age pension rate of £100 by 2000. We are well on the way to achieving this, with record increases in pension rates over the last three budgets. In 1997 the maximum rate of old age contributory pension, at £78 per week, equated to 28% of average industrial earnings. From next month, at £96 per week, it will equate to over 30%, which is working towards the 34% recommendation of the Pensions Board in its report Securing Retirement Income.

In last year's review of the programme for Government, the Government went further and committed itself to the early achievement of the £100 commitment and, furthermore, extended it to all social welfare old age pensions by 2002. That includes non-contributory old age pensions. In addition, over the lifetime of this Government, all old age pensions will increase in line with average industrial earnings.

I have provided that from October this year entitlement to the free schemes will be extended to all people over 75 years of age regardless of household income or composition. In this regard, I am pleased to inform Deputies that the review of the free schemes is being published by the Policy Institute today and I will launch it later this evening. I have arranged that a copy of the review will be made available to Members of both Houses this afternoon. I will examine the review in detail in the context of future budgetary policy.

The Government identified in An Action Programme for the Millennium the need to review medical card eligibility for the elderly and large families and has decided that the income guidelines for entitlement to medical cards for people age 70 and over should be doubled.

Additional information.The income guidelines for those aged 70 to 79 and 80 years and over, which were already higher than the normal guidelines, increased by one third in 1999. This improvement, which is being introduced over a three-year period, began on 1 March 1999, the second stage of the process was implemented on 1 March this year and the third in March 2001.

Under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, the National Anti-Poverty Strategy will be updated and the underlying methodology reviewed and revised where appropriate. In particular, new targets will be considered under the themes of older people, women's poverty, child poverty, health and housing-accommodation. This process will be completed during the first 18 months of the programme. In addition, the issue of relative income poverty will be reviewed by a working group to be established to examine bench-marking and indexation issues.

I thank the Minister for circulating copies of the review of the free schemes. A quarter of elderly householders are living below the 50% poverty line while over half are living below the 60% poverty line. Will the Minister agree this shows that older people are becoming increasingly marginalised and that despite the increases which he has trumpeted over the past three years people have become increasingly reliant on very low incomes? Does he agree it is extraordinary that 82% of people living alone rely entirely on social welfare and that over 60% of all senior householders live on less than £100 per week?

Does the Minister agree that social welfare income for senior citizens is increasing at a much slower rate than income increases among the general population? Does he also agree there is a specific problem with regard to non-contributory old age pensions in that it will be many years before those reliant on them will get near the Minister's target of £100 per week? Does he agree there is a similar problem with widow's non-contributory pensions, that he should give deeper thought to the problems associated with poverty among the elderly and that merely to say that the Government is moving towards a target of £100 per week by 2002 is not good enough?

The Government did not need the ESRI, Combat Poverty Agency or anybody else to tell it about the difficulties experienced by older people over the years. Many times in this House I have said that my party believed that because older people did not have the same lobbying powers as other groups in the 1980s and 1990s they fell behind. That is why, when we took office in June 1997 we decided to positively discriminate in favour of older people. We have done that, perhaps to the detriment of other groups which might feel they have not been as well looked after.

The ESRI report referred to the free schemes, high levels of ownership and wide medical card coverage, issues which we addressed in our recent programmes. Taking account of these factors, the conclusion is drawn that older people in general have higher living standards than was anticipated and that cash incomes are less crucial as a means of alleviating elderly deprivation than is the case for other sectors.

According to the NPPI method of calculating old age pensions, that is the old age contributory pension as a percentage of previous years average industrial earnings, it will be 30.41% this year. Last year it was 29.74% and 29% the previous year. In 1997 it was only 27.98%. When the rainbow coalition was in Government this dropped in its mid-term and then increased. Our record in office is, therefore, better. The Government wishes to take a two-pronged approach to the issue of older people. First, we want to address the issue of the State pension and, second, we want to ensure that there is good occupational pension coverage.

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