My mother edits a newspaper called NewsFour. It's a free community paper published every two months and distributed in the Ringsend, Sandymount, Irishtown, Ballsbridge and Pearse Street areas of Dublin. You'll find it in shops, offices, supermarkets, old people's homes and sports clubs. It's been around for 20 years.
She loves her job. No, really. People wait a lifetime for the perfect job to fall into their laps, and sometimes it happens but mostly it doesn't. A widow by the age of 40, and a mother of eight, she spent years minding children, both her own and other people's. She got every secretarial qualification going and did various administrative jobs, including making sense of the spidery writing on manuscripts handed to her by local literary figures and academics who knocked on our door.
Then, eventually, a job came along with her name written all over it. She became a supervisor on the community employment scheme that publishes NewsFour. In her few years there she has put the newspaper online, pushed circulation to 8,000 copies, introduced colour and increased production from four issues a year. She is a friend to the people there, and a confidante, as well as an efficient boss. She's a woman who has been around for 67 years.
I used to work on NewsFour myself. A few months ago I started going into her office to take part in the weekly editorial meetings. On these visits I like to think of myself as a high-powered media consultant, but, shockingly, the course participants just treat me like another member of the team. I pitch in with ideas, suggest how stories might be tackled and sometimes get told off by my mother for being too bossy. "I'm the boss," she'll laugh, and we'll all join in. It's just not that funny any more.
The people at Age Action Ireland have a name for what is happening to my mother, for what happens to older people every day: "birthcertism". You see, her birth certificate contains a date, and because of that number she is being forced to leave her job. Because of that number she has been told this fulfilling, vibrant, worthwhile part of her life must come to an end. Not because she is failing, or no longer fit for the job, but because of a number: 1939.
And, really, say the authorities, if she wants the truth, then by rights she should have been kicked out a year ago, but there was an oversight, and they didn't notice when she turned 66. Fás is letting her work out the contract it approved, but she will get her marching orders in May.
I rang Fás. Apparently, it's even worse for most of its own employees, who must leave their jobs a year earlier, the day before their 65th birthdays. Fortunately for recent recruits, new legislation means staff who became permanent ior after April 2004 now have to work until they are at least 65. There is no longer a maximum retirement age, except, of course, when it comes to the thousands who, like my mother, were employed before 2004.
Colm O'Cinneide, a lawyer who teaches at University College London, understands that forcing people to retire before they are ready is a human-rights issue. "Mandatory retirement involves the selection of an arbitrary chronological date, usually the 65th birthday," he writes. "It fails to take account of the vastly different situations that older persons may find themselves in at that date. By denying access to the workplace, it can close off opportunities for individual self- realisation and constitute a paternalist intrusion in personal life that violates the principle of human dignity."
O'Cinneide's theory suggests that as increasing numbers of older people find themselves out of jobs because of birthcertism, the Republic will be challenged in the European Court of Justice. The Employment Equality Act 1998 originally protected only those aged between 18 and 65; the Equality Act 2004 removed the upper limit altogether. "Therefore," writes O'Cinneide, "it appears that in Ireland employers will have to justify the use of mandatory retirement ages on a case-by-case basis."
At least, then, people who, like my mother, are being fired - I mean, being retired - will be given proper explanations about why it's happening (although, like many other people, she's still waiting for one).
People over 65 make up 12 per cent of the population; a quarter of them say they would like the chance to work beyond "retirement age". They will be harder to ignore in 2050, when they'll make up one in four of us. Perhaps they'll be listened to then.
Age Action Ireland is at 01-4756989, www.age action.ie. A typographical error last week gave the impression that Peaches Geldof is 10; she was 17 on Thursday. Happy birthday