Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Brightspark Closure

October 18, 2008 at 2:05 pm

It is with regret that I have to inform you that Brightspark will be closing this Wednesday, 22 October between the hours of 12.30-2.30pm.

At that time, you will find me outside the Dail protesting against the Government’s ill-thought out plan to remove medical cards for the over 70’s.  My mother who is 77 will be with me.  And my auntie Nora, 73.

It took a bit of persuasion to get my Mum on board because unfortunately the organisers of the protest had chosen a time that clashed with her hair colouring appointment.  But after much discussion and in light of the severity of the situation and the fact that the time has come for all of us to show our dissent and actually do something about things - she has managed to change her appointment!  Lucky too that the anti-flu injection can still go ahead at the later time of 4pm.

Why am I doing this?

Because I am so sick of sitting back and watching the politicians making sounds about how we all need to tighten our belts to get our country back on its feet.  Budget 2009 did not go far enough in extracting money from the very rich. The property developers, the fat cat bankers and their ilk will hardly feel a thing.  And yet the ordinary people, the weak, the vulnerable look set to be the hardest hit.

It’s even more sickening to read in yesterday’s Irish Times that the move to means test medical cards was actually just the Minister trying to get at the Irish Medical Organisation.  Doctors are paid €161 to treat ordinary patients with medical cards, while they are paid €641 per patient aged over 71.   So the Government’s reasoning was that removing the medical cards from the over 70’s would make lots of savings.  That in itself is f****d up and the IMO and hospital consultants and all that crowd should take their place with the Brian Goggins’ of this world.

But to borrow one of my Mum’s expressions, “be that as it may”, it is not right to hit the over 70’s in Ireland because of blunders made in previous HSO ISO skirmishes.  Nor is it right to ask the over 70’s to have to do the most belt tightening for the current economic environment.

Think about what the over 70’s have done for our country:

• In the 1950’s and 1960’s they stayed.  When all around them, ships were departing for the post-war recovery boom towns of Liverpool, London, New York, and Boston, they stayed in Ireland.  They worked hard, did their best for their families and just got on with it.
• In the 1970’s when our country was on its knees, they paid their taxes, survived inflation rates in excess of 12% per annum and did what the politicians told them.  When Charles Haughey who has since been shown up for what he was, told them to save water and take a bath together, they did just that!
• There’s a lot of talk at the moment about the grim 1980’s.  We had the highest personal tax rates in Europe.  However, one of the positive notes was in 1986, when Live Aid happened.  Ireland gave the highest per capita of any country in the world.  At that time, I was only a kid but I felt an immense pride in that statistic.    Although our people didn’t have a lot, they gave plenty.

The ones who did that giving, and working, and living are all all over 70 now.  They were in their 50’s in the 1980’s, and that last decade of their working lives was marked by emigration, unemployment, fear.  Back then if you were made redundant in your 40’s or 50’s, the chances were that you’d never work again.

And so to the last two decades of full and plenty.

Our generation of over 70’s finally got to retire; put the feet up, and enjoy a few weeks in Lanzarote!  Property prices soared, their little houses in ordinary Dublin suburbs suddenly were worth a goldmine.   They took great pleasure in seeing ‘our little country’ changing for the better.  More jobs.  More money.  More confidence.  And for the first time, their kids didn’t have to emigrate.

My mum gets such a kick out of chatting to ‘lovely girls’ from Poland, Lithuania, and Czech Republic on the bus.  She rejoices in the diversity that has come to this country.  Who’d have thought that her grandchildren would be sitting in national school alongside little ones from Asian and African backgrounds?

She is a fit and healthy 77 year old.  She is no burden on the medical card system.  But at 77, you do have to get the equivalent of an oil change, and new tyres every so often.  A blood test will now cost my Mum €120 - €60 to go get it, and €60 for the results.   If she’s hit with the flu’ as so often happens, and needs a prescription, that’ll now cost €60 just to get it.   I worry now if she’ll put off those prescriptions to get her well.  Or if she’ll ignore pains, aches, and possible illness and try to be all stoic about it.  It’s a crazy solution brought to us by the HSE because it’s going to force many old people to go to the already clogged up hospitals for routine stuff like bloods, blood pressure, and ecg.

So that is why in this crazy time of bankers being bailed out, amidst a background of falling property prices, creeping unemployment, and all round fear,  I am taking time out to attend the rally.

You should too.

It’s at lunchtime, so there’s no excuses.  There is even sunshine forecast for the day!!

Posted in Business Culture Ireland, Dublin Life |