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Irish seniors turn to security firms for contact

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 1, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland - Most elderly people in Ireland issued with personal alarms ring them just because they are lonely, a leading security company said Wednesday in a reflection of the country's rapidly changing family demographics.

Community groups began issuing hand-held alarms in the mid-1980s to people in their 70s and older living on their own, particularly in rural areas, after a rise in robberies and assaults targeting the elderly. The alerts also help a lone person summon emergency medical help.

But a security company executive told a conference that the majority of ringers cannot reach a family member and are desperate for human contact.

"They're just lonely," said Gerry Bunting, managing director of Task Security and Community Care, Ireland's longest-established provider of personal alarms. "They will have given us a list of family members' contact details, but they're not reachable, and they think we can wave a magic wand and get in touch with them."

Speaking at the conference marking Community Alert Awareness Week, Bunting said the elderly are increasingly ringing the alarms, most commonly at night, simply to talk to the emergency official who answers at Task's call center in Portrane, a suburb north of Dublin.

He said the center fields 700 to 800 alarms a week, and more than 80 percent come from isolated elderly people wanting to talk. Bunting said many alarm-ringers were "pretending to see if it works but then start chatting to the operators."

Since the mid 1990s, a rise in marriage breakdown and decline in family size have led to weaker family supports, with grandparents ending up alone.

[Last modified November 1, 2007, 00:18:45]