A new year promises much for older people. Their desires and needs are now to the forefront. There is serious talk about the adequacy of pensions, rigorous nursing home inspections, and citizens working past the traditional retirement ages. There is a gathering recognition that older age can be a time of immense fulfilment, vigour and involvement.
Much of this positivity is the result of lobbying by organisations such as Age Action Ireland combined with the furore over the quality of nursing homes and the cost implications of long-term care. How we treat 12 per cent of our population is very much a rights issue. This should be underlined with the prompt appointment of an ombudsman for older people. The young and the fit sometimes forget the difficulties the elderly can face when dealing with officialdom and when official agencies malfunction, there is often little redress.
The State must become the champion of current and future older people. Minister for Social Affairs Séamus Brennan and his colleagues should decide whether private pension contributions should be mandatory, "soft" mandatory with an opt-out clause, or whether 50 per cent of Irish workers should continue without pension arrangements. The best interests of citizens and not of the pensions industry should be the deciding factor.
In the meantime, there must be public debate on Minister for Health Mary Harney's plan for the financing of nursing home care which would see the State recouping a posthumous repayment from the sale of an older person's home. Such care is only utilised by about 5 per cent of older people and Ms Harney wants to maximise the number who can continue to reside in their own homes. But this cannot be done without adequate community services. Indeed, a proper audit of the efficacy of community-based services might be even more embarrassing for the State than the negative publicity surrounding nursing homes.