While over a hundred thousand people are in receipt of the old age pension, the application process is complicated and stressful.
Applicants for old age pensions have to go through a tiresome and often humiliating procedure.
There are over a hundred thousand old age pensioners and sixteen thousand widows receiving pensions in Ireland and for all, there is a means test. Many of these depend solely on their pension which at maximum for both categories is four pounds sixty five new pence.
An old person must first apply to the Department of Social Welfare giving full details of their circumstances. There may be a delay of two months during which the claimant must depend on his or her relatives or on charity. The application form can be complicated with a mixed scale of payments depending on other sources of income.
One man describes the experience he had while applying for a pension on behalf of his father.
The average pensioner is not in touch with the rules, unaware of the rules. A lay man can hardly understand them.
After working for over fifty years this man's father believes he is now being sidetracked for the sake of a few bob a week.
If a pensioner wishes to appeal their application, they must go to one of the 310 pension committees which were established under the local authorities. These committees examine the circumstances of each claimant.
The rules of the means test are rough and ready. If an applicant has money set aside for their burial, this could be included by the committee as part of their capital assets and could potentially make a claimant ineligible for any pension. While most committees are sympathetic, the process for the claimant can be very intimidating.
The final decision is made by a faceless official.
One pensioner, Mrs Kane, explains how she and her husband had their pension withdrawn for a number of months as they had not understood the criteria correctly. While they did eventually get their pensions back, the husband had a nervous breakdown during the process over fear of imprisonment. Mrs Kane faced further complications when her husband died.
George McLoughlin, Chairman of the Dublin Old Age Pensioners Committee, is critical of the overly complicated application procedure. He believes that the process could be improved by firstly speeding up the time by which claimants receive their payment. Not only are older people being deprived of a payment due to the lengthy application process, they are also being deprived of their free travel allowance. If the process could be sped up, it would reduce the hardship endured by applicants.
Old people or widows, no more than anyone else, can not live on air and must survive while remote authorities decide their fate.
This episode of 'Seven Days' was broadcast on 16 November 1971. The reporter is John O'Donoghue.
