Move towards cashless world ‘discriminating against elderly’

THE move toward a cashless society is discriminating against many older people, a spokesperson for Age Action Ireland has told The Echo.

Head of advocacy at Age Action Ireland Celine Clarke said many older people feel increasingly left behind as more and more transactions move online.

“The reality is that the vast majority of people over the age of 70 are not online, have never been online, and are never likely to go online. That’s not to say every single person over the age of 70, but it is the majority,” Ms Clarke said.

“Older age is still the greatest indicator for who is digitally excluded, we know that this group of people is not online, they largely don’t bank digitally, and they deal in cash, so provisions should be available to them to facilitate them.

“People who rely on cash are being excluded, and it’s not just older people, it’s people on lower incomes, there are unbanked people, and they are just being excluded by the push to be digital and cashless,” Ms Clarke said.

The importance of cash as legal tender was raised in the Dáil this week in a Rural Independent Group private members’ Bill, which called on the Government to work with institutions to maintain the provision of cash services.

Responding to the Bill, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould said the Dáil often discusses issues such as housing, the cost-of-living crisis, and health.

“To many people this motion is just as important because many vulnerable people have no other option but to make transactions and pay for services with cash,” Mr Gould said.

Mr Gould, a lifelong GAA member, said he had been very disappointed by the GAA’s decision to go cashless.

“During the pandemic the argument was that everyone accepted it because it was a public health issue, but when we came out of it the GAA should have gone back to its roots,” he said.

Last month, members of Cork County Council passed unanimously a motion by Councillor Bernard Moynihan to write to the Cork

County Board asking that one cash entrance be maintained at all games.

Francis Kenneally, PRO for Cork GAA, said the decision to go cashless was national policy and was entirely out of the hands of the county board.

“It was a Croke Park directive, and it was reinforced again even in the past week, that absolutely no cash can be taken,” he said.

“At the end of the day people can go into SuperValu or Centra that have the facility to sell national league tickets and they can purchase their ticket and pay cash.”

This week, Gabriel Makhlouf, governor of the European Central Bank, told The Echo the bank had no plans to abandon cash.

“If I had to speculate, I think we will always have cash. In the end it’s a good backstop, you can run out of battery in your phone and all those things. The use of cash is going to get less and less but from our perspective, we are keeping it full stop, not just for now,” Mr Makhlouf said.