Age Action, Ireland’s leading advocacy organisation for older people, has expressed its concern that a proposed increase in the State Pension in Budget 2018 could be delayed until well into the new year.
The organisation was responding to reports in today’s papers that the €5 pension increase older people are calling for might not take effect until July of next year.
Justin Moran, Head of Advocacy and Communications with Age Action, said: “The income of an older person on the State Pension and the Household Benefits Package today is still less today than it was in 2009.
Increasing poverty
“Cuts to income supports like the Fuel Allowance and the Telephone Allowance, combined with rising prices and new taxes, are driving ever more older people into poverty.
“Last year the pension increase did not take effect until March. We would be very concerned that an increase in 2018 could be pushed out even later in the year, delaying the restoration of the incomes of hundreds of thousands of older people.”