Tag Archives: ALONE

A QUIN man has been appointed as one of Ireland’s first digital ambassador for Active Retirement Ireland.  After a rigorous tech training programme, Eugene Philips was conferred with the prestigious honour at a special event at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin. The 75-year-old will now lead a series of free digital skills classes for older people in the community. The initiative is part of the Vodafone Ireland Foundation Hi Digital programme, in partnership with Active Retirement Ireland and ALONE. Over the past three months, Eugene has undergone intensive technology training, Hi Digital train-the-trainer training and Hi Digital platform training. “I think for a lot of older people with low or no digital literacy, they perhaps feel as though getting online is too big a task or they’re too far behind,” said Mr Philips. “You don’t have to be a tech whizz — technology these days is designed to be easy for people to use and the Hi Digital …

ALONE, the charity that supports older people in need, has called on Health Minister, Leo Varadkar to ensure that a robust system is put in place to ensure all individual complaints made against nursing homes are independently investigated. A new Memorandum of Agreement between HIQA and the Ombudsman excludes private nursing homes where almost 18,000 older people reside. Sean Moynihan, chief executive Officer of ALONE said, “There are currently 700 allegations of mistreatment and bad practices at nursing and care homes in Ireland; this is a matter of grave concern to us and to older people generally. HIQA does not have the power to investigate individual complaints and as a result older people have been left with nowhere to turn”. Moynihan explained, “Currently vulnerable older people are being asked to complain to the organisation that they are alleging abuse against. The new Memorandum of Agreement between HIQA and the Ombudsman only protects the 20% of older people residing in public …

ALONE has come out in support of HIQA’s request for increased investigative powers into individual nursing home complaints. Sean Moynihan, CEO of ALONE, the charity which supports older people in need, commented, “Already there have been a number of serious cases reported since Leas Cross, with many additional homes closed down. The Government needs to give HIQA the power to investigate individual complaints, to protect older people in nursing home care. Older people in nursing homes are in a very vulnerable position and they need to be supported.” Mr Moynihan said as individual complaints are investigated internally, older people and families may feel they can’t speak out, for fear of losing their place in the home. “Currently over 2,000 people are waiting for nursing home care in the country, this makes nursing homes very powerful. People need to have an impartial external body to submit complaints to. This is an industry that needs to be properly regulated to ensure it …

Today, October 1,  is  International Day of Older People and ALONE is highlighting the fact that one in five Irish older people live in deprivation. CEO of ALONE, Sean Moynihan said, “International Day of Older People is a time for older persons to celebrate the positive things in their life, to rejoice in their family, to celebrate their friends and to enjoy the rewards that they have earned through many years hard work. “In ALONE, while we do celebrate these positives, every day we are in contact with people who are within the 20% of Irish older people that are at risk of poverty or living in deprivation. There is an unacceptable amount of older people within society with very little to celebrate and who are living without a range of basic human rights.” Mr Moynihan noted that instead of becoming a more age – friendly country, Ireland’s number of older people, who are marginalised or deprived, has actually increased from …