Budget 2025: Elderly choosing heat over food in cost-of-living crisis

As Ireland’s population grows and ages, the pension burden of the State also increases.

While pensions are likely to rise in Tuesday’s budget, the call has come from Social Justice Ireland to increase the state contributory and non-contributory pensions by €25 per week and to universalise the payment, starting in January 2025, at a cost of €1.37bn in Budget 2025

Social Justice Ireland has said that additional expenditure could be funded through reform of Ireland’s system of pension-related tax reliefs, as well as a “moderate increase” in employer PRSI.

Paddy O’Brien, who advocates for the elderly in Cork city, said there are two key measures that should be introduced by the Government: An increase in the weekly pension, with a special consideration for those who are living alone, as they face the same increases in heating and electricity costs but with just half the income of a couple; and an increase in the weekly fuel payment, coupled with an extension of the period of the payment to cover beyond the first week in April.

“I’ve come across real and genuine poverty,” Mr O’Brien told The Echo.

“I’ve never heard as many sincere complaints about the cost of living.

“People are struggling to meet costs not just from week to week, but from day to day.”

Mr O’Brien said that the most severe threat faced by the elderly is the cold.

“Most of the elderly people in Cork are living in cold and damp houses and they have to purchase fuel daily,” he said.

“A geriatrician at a conference told me that when faced with the choice between heat and food, an elderly person has to pick heat,” he added.

Mr O’Brien had met people who were being paid large salaries and they were finding the cost of living hard to deal with, when purchasing food and other items in supermarkets.

“Imagine how much more difficult it is for the elderly on the minimum pension rate,” he said.