Elderly ‘too scared to spend savings on heating homes’
Monday 24th January 2011, 2:59PM GMT.
Age Concern chairwoman Daphne Minihane
SOME pensioners are not heating their homes because they are saving the money to pay for their own funerals, according to Age Concern.
The JEP reported on Friday how one in five pensioners living alone in Jersey cannot afford to heat their home.
Senator Francis Le Gresley is calling on the States to back a proposal to extend winter fuel payments of £225 a year to 1,400 more pensioners at a cost of £315,000.
He said that money could come from scrapping events including the black-tie Jersey Enterprise awards, which cost £75,000 each year.
Age Concern chairman Daphne Minihane agreed with Senator Le Gresley’s proposal and said that elderly people living in ‘Middle Jersey’ were too scared to dip into their savings to pay for heating bills.
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can we not just throw all the junkies onto the minkies and let them do cold turkey? that would cover a lot of heating bills.. most of them are proper mental even when they aren’t on it anymore.
I did say MOST not all.. not wanting to offend the rare few who are decent people
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I am not a pensioner,just an ordinary working person.
I pay income tax, rates, mortgage and Social Security.
I have only ever claimed sickness benefit from Social Security.
I do not have a flash car or TV.
I do not take off island holidays.
I eat out about twice a year.
By the end of the month I am getting really low on funds and this will only get worse thanks to 0-10 and the GST rip off.
Recently I could not afford the £35 it costs to visit the Doctor and had to endure an untreated chest infection for 5 days.
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Whoever said you can’t take it with you?!
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Why worry about funeral costs…someone elses problem by then…be warm now plenty of time to be cold once you’ve croaked….unless you go to the other place that is… where all the politicians will then have to listen to us pointing out their screw ups for eternity…I like that.
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jersey , sadly these days is only “life enriching for some these days”
i dread coming to my retirement .
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I wish there were an organisation that could represent pensioners and the elderly in the island. There is too much talk of genteel middle Jersey and not enough action. Pensioners are getting poorer by the day and no one is providing leadership. Words are not enough. Many of us oldies have no fear. We are retired and have nothing to loose. We do it for our children and grandchildren. Ozouf and Co cannot be allowed to sell out the island of our birth to the suits and financiers. Let get organised.
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Mrs Minihane needs to understand that it is the population as a whole that are facing higher fuel costs, and in addition, the working population are facing higher taxed.
As regards funeral costs, these are an expense of ones estate following sale of property and assets and relatives should not go bleating to Mrs Minihane that they cannot afford to pay a funeral bill of £4,700
As for free TV licenses, these were funded by a tax on beer and if the money is not being used for this purpose, the duty should be reduced.
Sorry to say this but under Daphne Minihane, the message seems to be Grab Grab Grab. The elderly will lose respect from the younger generation who grapple with far higher living costs, and reduced tax breaks.
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How many politicians grannies sit shivering in the cold…remember oldies can not move around so easily to get warm….some only have radio or T.V. for company as their lonely existence has just become that way….if the States had the balls they would make sure that the J.E.C. who bear in mind have a total monopoly and a captive audience..either give a very cheap rate to those in genuine need,easy to establish or tax them eniough to pay for it this rapacious island has become less caring rapidly ,what is the point of community…? what is the purpose of Government….some serious loss of direction is taking place as outsiders milk and milk…we need civil disobedience and major reform so that epole count once more…every revolution in history has been about selfish greedy gits lording it over skint people who were made skint by them….remember Ceausescu in Romania,shot on National T.V. by those who had just had enough…best thing apart from the moonlanding I ever saw.
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Is it normal for all sense of reality to go when you become elderly? I really don’t think that this woman is a good representative for the eldery – if she make such daft comments like this.
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Most elderly will not put their heating on because they are too tight. The elderly never had it so good as this current generation. They lived through the boom times with high interest rates brilliant opportunities etc. Now they get 10% discounts in supermarkets free buses a nice little £100 handout from a local benefactor every christmas. need I go on. It is the future generations who will suffer in their old age with their rubbish pensions and no chance of putting anything aside because of the high taxes etc they have to pay now.
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What some people do not seem to appreciate is that the older generation have worked,paid their taxes etc,scrimped to survive etc just as the younger generation are doing now (in general)They have most probably lived a much more frugal existence because they didn’t expect to have brand new everything such as cars and furniture and of course things like wide screen TV’s,computers,mobile phones etc as they were not even invented let alone a necessary must have.I am talking here more about people of perhaps 75 plus not “younger” pensioners.My mother spent her last few years constantly worrying about paying bills and unexpected expenses and even when we found,due to her ill health,that she was entitled to a very small amount of assistance she didn’t want to claim any handouts!
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Agree with most, all are being affected, if anything the elderly are in a better position than the average working person. Their pensions are ring fenced and paid out at 60/65. I doubt in spite of paying social all my life that there will be a pension for me when I retire.
I hear old people complaining about the interest they are getting on their savings, the flipside is that those families with mortgages are getting some breathing space whilst being hit from all sides financially. I think many elderly people are selfish, placing interest on capital above the ability of a normal family to buy what they already have.
It’s tough for everyone, at least they have ahd a lifetime of relative affluence and full employment to prepare for it.
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Mrs Minihane has been a very vocal critic of the states increasing taxes required to help with such costs.
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13 Yes she has and quite rightly so…because they are bloody well taxing the wrong people and disproportionately…we have working people paying more tax than spivs who with accountants have financial vehicles that can outrun the tax.
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