Older people are regularly discriminated against, denied access to essential health services and regarded as problematic, it was claimed today at the launch of am equality campaign.
As part of the Older and Bolder campaign five groups - Age Action Ireland, Age and Opportunity, Irish Hospice Foundation, Irish Senior Citizen's Parliament and the Senior Help Line - have called on all political parties to commit themselves to the introduction of a national strategy on older people during the lifetime of the next government.
Mr Eugene Murray, Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Hospice Foundation, who chaired the launch said that enjoying a good quality of life was "a crucial issue for older people".
He described equal access to health services as a basic human right. But said the "sad reality" was that "older people face discrimination in accessing life enhancing services.This consistent inequality is not just unacceptable but could also be viewed as a measure of the maturity of our society."
Also speaking at the launch in Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy Gallery, Professor Eamon O'Shea, from NUI Galway's Irish Centre for Social Gerontology pointed out that according to Census 2002, there were 436,000 people aged 65 and over in Ireland, representing around 11 per cent of our population
"The fact that greater numbers of people in Ireland are reaching old age is a major achievement," he said "However, in many important respects Ireland is an Ageist Society, seeing the growing number of older people more as a demographic problem than a demographic bounty."
In order to tackle this ageist discrimination the Older and Bolder campaign is seeking to have a new national strategy for older people which will include the age-proofing of all government policies and the enactment of clear and consistent legislation on the rights and entitlements of older people including the strengthening of the equality legislation
The campaign is also seeing the adoption of a target income for pensioners of 50 per cent of pre-retirement income before tax while also ensuring that the minimum pension reaches 40 per cent of gross average industrial earning.
In addition the group wants to see the replacement of the mandatory retirement at 65 years by a more flexible model of retirement, while ensuring that mandatory retirement is not replaced by older people being forced to work and the ending of all barriers preventing older people accessing health services including full and equal access to various screening programmes.
