In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said that one of the social measures the government is introducing next year is an allowance of €300 to elderly people aged 80 years or over, and who are living on their own in their own home.

Half-page adverts in all newspapers announce that this grant is being given to “elderly people aged 80 years and over who are living in their own home or with their families”.

While any incentive to elderly people to live at home is always welcome, the way this measure is being introduced highlights the insensitivity of this government.

If this allowance is also to be given to elderly couples (so one would not be living “on one’s own” as announced in the Budget speech, as far as I remember), and even more so, if the elderly person or couple would be living “with their families”, how come many more elderly people who have not yet reached the age of 80, but who happen to be living completely on their own in their own home, and hence, have no one else to look after them, will not be receiving anything at all?

Or will these elderly people be remembered in the Budget prior to the election, in an attempt to make them forget the many times they have been left without their ‘free medicine’ because it was ‘out of stock’?

This not to mention the exorbitant prices they are paying for medicines which are not available in the Pharmacy of Your Choice scheme, or the highest water and electricity tariffs in the EU, and many other burdens regaled to them in the past few years.

Elderly people of all ages should be respected at all times, not just when a general election is around the corner.