Pensioners appear to be having little trouble adjusting to the new currency,Mary Minihan reports
You can teach an old dog new tricks appeared to be the attitude of most senior citizens collecting their pensions in euro for the first time.
Many pensioners at the packed Rathmines Post Office in Dublin yesterday morning said they were coping well with the changeover, although some said it was the "old people" they felt really sorry for.
Local man Mr Sean Ó Cróinín was particularly enthusiastic about the new currency, which he thought was "better than the other money". The 75-year-old said he regularly visited friends in Germany and the changeover would take the difficulty out his next trip.
"I won't be changing to deutschemarks anymore. I'll just get money out of the machine over there, if there's anything in it, of course," Mr Ó Cróinín said. Ms Nella Cleary from Ranelagh collected her pension money and found it to be "exactly right". She said the changeover was inevitable and had not presented her with any great difficulty.
"We were all very well prepared and had these little do-dahs," she said, waving her euro converter. Ms Margaret Hennessey said she was already "flying" with the new currency. "I paid for my coffee in euro today and I thought I was great," she laughed. Not everyone was so receptive to the new currency, however. One man dismissed the coins as "fiddler's money" and complained that he would have to wear his reading glasses to see them. Another disgruntled 75-year-old from Rathgar said the changeover had been a mistake.
"It was a rotten thing to do to change the money. They should have left it as it was." Rathmines woman Ms Kitty Nugent, admitted she found the new coins a little confusing. "I thought we had finished with the ha'penny and now we've got something even smaller," she said.
However, she was also finding the converter helpful and had used it to work out how much pension she would receive before leaving the house yesterday morning.
Ms Georgina Blowers, from Harold's Cross, was worried that elderly people could be ripped-off. "But I'm too cute for them. I watch every penny."