In an interview for the Irish Mail on Sunday on December 28, Sage Advocacy trustee and chair of Safeguarding Ireland, Patricia Rickard-Clarke joined Sage Advocacy CEO, Bibiana Savin, in outlining some of the serious issues facing older people at the hands of supposed ‘friends’, relatives and carers – and in calling for greater oversight of pensions arrangements by the Department of Social Protection.
Describing the type of situation that many older people and vulnerable adults are caught in, Ms Rickard-Clarke told journalist, Valerie Hanley: “Some are left languishing in care homes against their wishes, where they are left with mounting bills and do not even have proper clothes, reading glasses, hearing aides of appropriate night wear because relatives or carers are pocketing their welfare payments.”
Sage Advocacy CEO, Bibiana Savin, spoke about some of the complex financial issues that advocates support older people to resolve, giving the example of pensions from outside the jurisdiction that get cut off when correspondence goes unseen and unacknowledged after a person moves in to a nursing home. She said: “In some cases, it wasn’t until the nursing home fees ‘bounced’ due to insufficient funding that concerns were raised… it was established that the pension from abroad was no longer being paid.”
Both Ms Rickard-Clarke and Ms Savin were speaking to acknowledge the launch of Ireland’s first National Policy Framework for safeguarding in health and social care – but to emphasise that existing reforms do not go far enough. Both pressed the need for an independent Adult Safeguarding Authority that would set standards and investigate abuses. Ms Rickard-Clarke further stated her belief that fewer vulnerable people would be financially abused if the Department of Social Protection took a role in carrying out audits and checks of pensioners’ changing circumstances in later years to be sure that anyone nominated to collect an older person’s pension on their behalf is doing so legitimately, with the person’s continued informed consent.
The Mail on Sunday article can be read in full here.
