Over 65s who work ‘can afford the [bus] tickets’ – really, Deputy Gabriel?

I read in the press his pronouncement the over 65s who work ‘can afford the tickets’. Really Deputy Gabriel? Let me enlighten you on the realities of many over 65s on this island. Ignoring the fact that many over 65s are still working as their retirement age was put back by a least another year by your predecessors, many find themselves in the position that they have very little choice to continue working. This is because the States pension will be so inadequate, given the cost of living now, that you couldn’t live on it. The next group is those of our society who have worked all their lives, paid diligently into a system, and then when they call on it to finance themselves in the twilight years, find it impossible to live. They then have to go back to work, often in lower-paid or even minimum-wage jobs and are catching the very buses you are on about to their various places of work just to financially survive. Oh, and don’t even get me started if they’ve never been able to afford a house over here and are still in rental accommodation. But the ‘piece de resistance’ from Guernsey’s very own Norman Tebbit (over 65s will get this) is the following: ‘Deputy Gabriel said he did not have any figures for how many free bus passes were used during the rush hour in the morning’. I’ll let your readers draw their own conclusion regarding his comments. However, yet again we have another States member waxing lyrical in the GP without actually having any hard evidence to back up their misguided nonsense.

DAVE NEWMAN

Olveston

Ville Au Roi

St Peter Port