PROTEST AGAINST CUTS!!
Wednesday 28th June 2023 @ 5pm
DFL Offices, Clarence Court,
10-18 Adelaide Street Belfast

Come and Support Our Over 60s Fight Back – Join the Bus Convoys to Belfast City Centre – support your Grandparents and Parents.
According to a bus driver at the meeting some 70,000 over 60s use the scheme. Half a million pensioners here are living below the poverty line.
This scheme was established to support people who are most at risk of public exclusion – that’s the department’s own language. The need for that has not changed – people are more in poverty – are more isolated. University research indicates that access to free travel increases bus use, improves access to services more generally among older people, improves mobility, social participation, and health. This scheme is a literal lifeline for older people who experience loneliness.

People Before Profit’s Gerry Carroll said to those gathered at a recent Public Meeting about the proposed cuts of the over 60’s Bus Passes that people should ‘take to the streets’ in opposition to the proposal. He highlighted a range of impacts the plan could have, including added costs amid the cost-of-living crisis, deepening loneliness, and cutting people off from healthcare and their communities. This is about taking discretionary fares, free travel, off tens of thousands of people who are over 60, who rely on the scheme. This is taking from people who have paid all their lives, have worked all their lives in public services. This is cruel that DFL are even thinking about removing this scheme at any time, but especially during a cost-of-living crisis when people are struggling, and the price of transport is going through the roof.