Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 86: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he was informed by the Equality Authority in advance of the detail of the poster campaign being sponsored by them together with the Health Service Executive and the National Council on Ageing and Older People for the Say No to Ageism in 2008 campaign on 19 to 23 May 2008; his views on whether the posters offensively stereotype older people and stigmatise young people; the cost of the campaign; the action he will take to ensure that there is no repetition of such an inappropriate and insensitive campaign paid for by public funds in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21209/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I must stress I have had no role in regard to the inception, detail or design of the campaign in question. As the Deputy noted, the fifth annual Say No to Ageism Week campaign ran this year between 19 May and 23 May. It was launched by my colleague, Deputy Máire Hoctor, Minister of State with responsibility for older people. It is a joint initiative of the National Council on Ageing and Older People, NCAOP, the Health Service Executive and the Equality Authority. The total cost of the campaign for 2008 was €225,000, funded equally by the three organising agencies. Say No to Ageism Week seeks to respond to ageism by highlighting it and by illustrating how ageism operates in society, in the workplace and in the provision of services. The campaign also promotes and supports practical action by organisations to develop "age friendly" service provision. A combination of outdoor advertising, cinema advertising, posters and local and national radio was used throughout the week.

This year's poster campaign had a particular focus on how stereotypical labels can be applied to older people and on how this labelling depersonalises, diminishes and excludes older people. Observers were challenged to examine their attitudes towards older people as compared to young people. The concept was developed by the Equality Authority and approved by the steering committee for the week, which included representatives of the HSE and the NCAOP. The council was represented by the chair of its communications advisory committee and by its communications officer. I am assured there was no intention to offend either older or young people.

As the Deputy rightly acknowledges, ageist attitudes can adversely affect people across all age groups. The Equality Authority is also engaged in an initiative to challenge the negative stereotyping of young people. This campaign, entitled Give Stereotyping the Boot, is running in partnership with the National Youth Council of Ireland. This and other campaigns are conducted by the Equality Authority under its broad mandate under the Employment Equality and Equal Status Acts to combat discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity in the areas covered by the Acts.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

The Equality Authority is an independent statutory body with its own board and a separate legal personality, and is independent in the exercise of these statutory functions. The chief executive of the authority is accountable to the Dáil for the economy and efficiency of the authority in the use of its resources, and the systems, procedures and practices employed by the authority to evaluate the effectiveness of its operations.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Does the Minister accept the authority comes under his remit and he funds it? Does he agree it was an outrageous misuse of public funds to spend €225,000 on reinforcing stereotypes of old people and not challenging them? Does he further agree this foolish and ill-conceived campaign could do nothing other than promote ageism as opposed to counteract it? Does he further accept putting up posters of elderly people throughout the country in bus shelters, on buses and in other locations with descriptions of them as a "burden", "grumpy", "forgotten" and "useless" can make no proper contribution to ensuring a lack of discrimination against old people and can only guarantee and ensure unthinking people will use those labels as a verbal means of putting old people down? Does the Minister agree many elderly people who saw these advertisements found them grossly offensive and distressing? Will he direct the Equality Authority to apply more common sense in future to the spending of public funds on promotional campaigns designed to end discrimination but which, if one applies common sense to them, can do nothing to resolve the problem they are supposed to address?

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Equality Authority is an independent statutory body and it is independent in the exercise of its statutory functions. It is not within my remit to run it on a day-to-day basis. The authority must take into account the views expressed by public representatives such as the Deputy, particularly given he raised them in the House. The Equality Authority could be called to one of the committees of the Oireachtas in order to answer questions in respect of this because it is required under the legislation to come before Dáil committees so I suggest that Deputy Shatter does that.

In respect of the reaction, it must be said that to our knowledge, only one negative comment has been communicated to the Equality Authority and this has been from a young person. All of the major NGOs in the area of older people were at the overall launch. For example, Age Action Ireland carried the poster on its website for several days before the launch and throughout the week of the campaign. Indeed, in a letter to The Irish Times on 26 May, Age Action Ireland referred to the current campaign as being "timely and badly needed", noting that "age discrimination is widespread across society". While Deputy Shatter may have a view on it and may be correct, there are others who feel the opposite to that.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Does the Minister acknowledge that if the Equality Authority were to decide to run a similar campaign to counteract racism, religious discrimination or discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation and put up posters of poor photographs of people with insulting labels attached to them, that would result in a national outcry? What is the Minister's personal view of this campaign? I have had overwhelming support for comments I publicly made criticising this campaign. Would the Minister consider that the reason people have not communicated their concern about this campaign to the Equality Authority and other organisations involved is because they simply felt that it was pointless to do so?

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The time for this question has expired.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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We have an obligation to ensure that public moneys are not spent in this way.

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Time has expired.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Again, I would say that the authority is independent. Obviously, I would not want any agency under my authority to promote something that would cause difficulty and annoyance for people. There is no doubt that the authority should bear in mind that it must be very careful in what it does but to be fair, it was endeavouring as much as possible to highlight the issue of assisting older people in their lives.