Ms Celine Clarke:

I can take that. I thank the Senator for the question. There is the silver dollar, which is a big market and economy both globally and within Ireland. People who are advertising will target older age cohorts, particularly on afternoon daytime television. If you are ever sick and at home, you will see the adverts for paying for funerals, for chairs that will help you get out and so on. There are a lot of products that are marketed at older persons. That does have a stereotypical reinforcing problem. In terms of how to counter it, there are a number of things. We do not just take the adverts off; we have to address the ageism that is built into the industry and built into society. That is the crux of practically everything we say around the lack of diversity. There are 1 million people over the age of 60 in Ireland. Those are 1 million different stories to tell and 1 million lives lived differently, and how they are reflected, both in the mainstream media and marketing or advertising, tends to be stereotypical. It is not in all cases and there is some very good practice. I acknowledge that.

Senator Warfield asked if Age Action engages with the media. We do so daily and I would not be able to do my job if I did not have good relationships with journalists to be able to put issues on the agenda and create space for dialogue. Where we recognise there is poor practice, it is largely because of a lack of awareness. We all need education and guidelines on diversity, equality and inclusion, and that is what we are trying to do - map the equality and rights narrative onto future media. The commission's report provides a very good framework, basis and hook for us to do that, and that is important. Ms Murphy mentioned we have a poll on ageism which was a representative poll. There are high levels of self-reported ageism and ageism directed at oneself which is internalised largely from the age of four as we grow older. If you do not see positive representations of yourself, regardless of the label that has been applied, you will end up having a negative attitude. At Age Action we convene positive ageing week each year as an attempt to focus on the positive stereotype and the diversity of older people and older people's issues, and we have some good support among media representation on that where they take the time, and that is possibly part of it. There is a news cycle that does not have a lot of time and then there is the longer term such as documentaries and different genres that have space to be able to create and give time to understanding the full issue. Those things are expensive to produce and need to be funded and that is why the protection of the public media content is vitally important going forward.