{"id":641379,"date":"2026-10-01T07:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641379\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:10:22","slug":"budget-2027-elderly-people-cutting-down-on-big-essentials-as-they-struggle-with-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641379\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget 2027: Elderly people cutting down on big essentials as they struggle with bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alone says an ageing population comes with more people living with multiple health conditions and increasing financial pressures\"A<\/p>\n

Elderly people are struggling with bills (stock photo)(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

Every Government department \u201cneeds to change\u201d to adapt to an ageing population, a national charity for older people has said.<\/a><\/p>\n

Alone says an ageing population comes with more people living with multiple health conditions and increasing financial pressures around housing, heating and food.<\/p>\n

The charity, which launched its annual report for 2025 on Tuesday, said its work shows that ageing well at home improves lives and cuts healthcare costs.<\/a><\/p>\n

Next Tuesday\u2019s Budget will be closely watched amid the inflated cost of fuel and groceries <\/a>\u2013 as well as an increasing old-age dependency ratio which will put demand on the public finances through the rising costs for pensions, healthcare and social services.<\/p>\n

Alone chief executive Sean Moynihan told the Press Association that \u201cnot everybody ages the same way\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe reality of it is older people living on their own have twice the rate of at-risk poverty of any age group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk about fixed income in an inflation world, they\u2019re the most people at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Moynihan said people on the state pension may only have discretionary spending for certain things.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe first thing to go is social, the second thing is they\u2019re cutting down on transport, then the heat and then the food.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last four years of inflation, people have been narrowing and narrowing their spending in these areas because the rest of money probably goes on just surviving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the budget ask for us. We\u2019re always talking about targeting: Older people living on their own are one big targeting group, older people around energy, another big target group.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cSimilarly around housing, we talk about 75% of older people out there own their own home but that means 25% don\u2019t \u2013 and its dropping.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are they living? How do you pay the rent when you retire?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not having these conversations \u2013 so Transport, Housing, Health every department needs to change because it\u2019s customers have changed if you want to put it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alone\u2019s annual report states that the number of personalised needs assessments it carried out increased by 165% over the past three years.<\/p>\n

It supported thousands of older people across its services in 2025 \u2013 with overlapping difficulties around health, housing, loneliness, and financial stress among the most common issues reported.<\/p>\n

Alone reported that 93% of its interventions were closed with needs regarded as met.<\/p>\n

It also cited research from the London School of Economics which found that people who received help from Alone were more likely to remain independent and well at home \u2013 with measurable improvements in their quality of life.<\/p>\n

This was calculated as contributing 3.5 million euro in savings.<\/p>\n

On top of the 274,000 volunteer hours last year worth 8.5 million euro, Alone said this delivers an estimated 12 million euro in savings to the State every year.<\/p>\n

Alone\u2019s work reached 46,000 older people last year, but Mr Moynihan said this represented just 2.5% of the population of older people in the country \u2013 and estimated that the demand for its services \u201cbehind doors we haven\u2019t got to yet\u201d could be six times that.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alone says an ageing population comes with more people living with multiple health conditions and increasing financial pressures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[272298,5168,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-641379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-alone-ireland","tag-budget","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}