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RENUA HAS PROPOSED that elderly people should use smartphone apps to stay in touch with each other – but they will be required to purchase the phones themselves.
The party put out a press release yesterday entitled ‘An App a Day Helps the Elderly’.
The statement criticised “the state” for ignoring the “inalienable right of our elderly citizens to live in dignity and safety”.
It added: “RENUA Ireland intends to prioritize this area of social cohesion. In particular we intend to use technology in this regard.
The elderly are far swifter and far more capable of using technology than convention suggests. RENUA Ireland intends to use methodologies such as apps to enhance the capacity of our elder citizen’s to stay in touch with each-other.
The release noted that the current government has “cut down on such devices as personal alarms and phones”. This is a reference to the controversial decision to scrap the telephone allowance in 2014 and cut the budget for person alarms used by the elderly the year before that.
Renua said that “extending services such as apps and providing training opportunities for the elderly in the use of Digital technology has serious potential to improve connectivity and socialization amongst our older people”.
We asked Renua for a bit more detail on the policy, particularly how it planned to equip the elderly with smartphones, apps and training in how to use them.
A spokesperson for the party said: “Our main proposal would be that the elderly would be trained and encouraged to use smart-phones and apps via existing services supplied by community centres.
Our main objective is to challenge the stereotyping which suggests new technology such as smart phones and apps cannot be used by the elderly.
We also asked whether elderly people would have to meet the cost of purchasing a smartphone or would Renua roll out a finance scheme to help them.
“Renua will not at this point in time equip the elderly with smart-phones and apps to keep in touch,” the spokesperson said.
The party argued that this is a “cost neutral proposal” which means “the elderly will be expected to meet the cost themselves”.
Renua added that there may be a case for reintroducing the telephone allowance but applying it to more modern technologies.
Asked how the party planned to address the lack of broadband coverage in some isolated rural areas where elderly people reside, the spokesperson added: “The party has not at this point in the short time of our existence crafted a policy on how to solve the lack of mobile phone/broadband coverage in isolated parts of rural Ireland.
“In that we are not alone but we do recognise it as representing a priority in terms of redressing the urban rural imbalance.”
The idea has been criticised by Active Retirement Ireland, which has over 24,000 members. Its head of communications Peter Kavanagh said the proposal is “a bit mad”.
“It’s a monumentally shortsighted idea to think that apps and the use of technology that a minority of older people are currently using could end the social isolation that has been caused indirectly by government policy,” Kavanagh said.
When you look at the state of broadband policy in Ireland a lot of our members live in rural, isolated areas. If they are in an area without broadband an app is utterly useless. It’s like a sugar pill that isn’t going to solve anything.
“I’d question how they plan on helping half-a-million people learn how to use the internet and smartphones. For somebody trying to get by on a state pension I would question how they can afford to get a new smartphone.”
And a superspreader is???
@The Thinker: Someone who is sick, fails to seek medical attention and highlight their sickness to authorities but yet continues to integrate in the community until they are too ill to do so.
Basically that ‘hero’ at work who doesn’t take sick days but probably should as they keep infecting the whole office.
Part of this was accelerated by witch doctors saying the experimental and supportive treatments , the WHO teams etc were a conspiracy by western govts to give them Ebola that made many afraid to ask for help
Idiot keyboard warriors from the west helped spread this too, saying things like the CDC held the patent on Ebola so must have created it in the lab. Others spewed uninformed nonsense like “it’s highly contagious ” and “what if a refugee from Africa sneezes on me in the A&E” Those who actually knew what we were talking about were ignored at first but thankfully once people had the facts laid out it turned around
@The Thinker: Someone with oversized testicles.
Remember, stay at home with the flu and don’t be opening the door to any super-spreaders.
A flu mutation and pandemic would kill way more than Ebola (and we’re overdue for one) and unlike a dozen Ebola cases which we could easily have handled with the usually empty isolation ward in the Mater our health service would totally collapse in its present form during a flu pandemic
We don’t have enough bed capacity for normal operations (we’re at least 5-6000 short minimum some would argue double that) let alone something where anything up to a third of the population could either be infected or convince themselves their cold is the mutated flu strain. We’re oddly better equipped to deal with the far less likely smallpox or Ebola or bubonic plague than the near certain flu mutation
Great piece of machinery on the farm, the old superspreader.
Just make sure it’s shots are up to date.
Also works in the pub.
Journal, thank you for my 2017 GF pet name on Valentines day! “Ebola Superspreader”
I was talking to my mother on the bus a few months ago and this yoke on the back seats was saying he got Ebola from his bird. I told him it wasn’t likely. He said he got a Ebola soup off his bird. I didn’t find it funny but he taught it was hilarious until he was getting off the bus and fell down the stairs. I had a good giggle.
Super spreader? Like the country girl at the disco……
@Shane Russell: Is that drink or bladder?
With global warming there will be more spread of diseases and a few new ones.
My aunt in the U.K. has a friend who has a viral disease as I found out a few days ago, the doctors do not know what the disease is as they never saw it before.
Is there a chance that the doctors are not trained well enought as that is possible but it is a thought, could we be living in a time where the advent of new diseases from global travel and global warming will spread and create diseases? Can you imagine super spreaders spreading superbugs, and the only defense we have might be in old herbal books on age old remedies?
WE WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT TOMORROW WILL BRING?
Like dung or lime spreaders?
have your say