Advocacy

The helpline had a lot of queries around the time of Storm Emma about the schemes available to help people in emergency situations and the role of the Community Welfare Officer, writes Gerry Scully.

The Living Alone Allowance is an additional payment made every week by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to pensioners, and some people with special needs under the age of 66, who are living by themselves.

Age Action information officer Phil Cooley explains how her local community rallied round to save their local post office.

In Dublin the average cost of nursing home care is roughly €76,000 while in Cork it is €67,000 so you really do need to find ways of saving money, writes Gerry Scully.

Age Action CEO John Church believes that at the heart of so many of the problems facing older people in Ireland is ageism. 

Lots of Irish people worked in Britain, the US, Europe and further afield before coming home. Gerry Scully explains how the pension contributions they made while working abroad can be used to get a better pension in Ireland.

Are you one of the 22,000 people living in a long-term residential care in Ireland, asks Audry Deane.

It’s now a few months since John Church became only Age Action’s third CEO in the organisation’s 25 year history. We sat down with him to find out a little more about the man now leading the country’s main ageing organisation

A number of changes were introduced from the start of November, Gerry Scully explains, which will only apply to people approved for the scheme after that date. These are designed to encourage more people to join the scheme which is currently heavily undersubscribed.

Private pensions are not mandatory, writes Gerry Scully, but given we all hope to one day collect the president’s bounty and to live well while waiting for that happy event private pensions are a necessity.