If Age Action Ireland's initiative in creating Positive Ageing Week does no more than focus attention on grey issues it will have been worthwhile. The week, which starts tomorrow with religious services and will be launched officially by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, on Monday, includes a wide range of activities.
Across the State older people will walk, debate, travel, and compete as part of their witness to the fact that being old is as important a stage of one's life as any other. Seminars on learning for older people in long-stay care, and on best practice in working with the elderly, as well as the publication of research findings, will help to focus on a subject that has received scant attention.
For too long older people have been judged purely on their chronological age, not on their talents. They have been excluded from the provisions of the Employment Equality Act, the breast screening programme, the Back to Education initiative, and are being forced in many cases to retire at 65 - an archaic imposition, created at a time when many people often did not live to that age. As far as possible one's retirement age should be a matter of choice.
Good social policy implies a wide range of options and services provided with magnanimity and imagination. Despite some advances, the Government has shown little flair in dealing with ageing matters. Inadequate subsidies for nursing homes, weak domiciliary care, and scarce sheltered housing often result in unacceptable hardship for older people.
More than 80 per cent of the elderly living alone rely on social welfare pensions and about 6.6 per cent are in consistent poverty when the national average is 5.5 per cent. In terms of income, 38 per cent of pensioners live in the lowest 20 per cent of households, unsurprising in a State with one of the lowest social expenditures in Europe.
At the week's end, the Government might reflect on whether it has put sufficient political muscle into the issues that affect the elderly. For example, how far has it progressed on ideas such as inter-generational housing, has it any view on the appropriate mix between private and State nursing home provision, and what has it done to ensure the jobs market shows a friendlier face to the elderly?
Charities, and the Equality Authority, which have done so much to ensure that older people are included, need to see some official vision so they can help to enhance the lives of this and future generations of older citizens.