Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Say No To Ageism week takes place from Monday, 15 May to Friday, 19 May 2006. It is an initiative of the Equality Authority, the Health Service Executive and the National Council on Ageing and Older People. Say No To Ageism week provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the barriers to equality for older people created by ageism. Ageism diminishes the status of older people in society and limits their access to economic resources. It generates negative attitudes towards older people such as being treated with disrespect or being patronised. It disempowers older people and limits their capacity to participate in making decisions that impact on them. Ageism ultimately prevents older people from participating in and fully contributing to society.

Say No To Ageism week seeks to stimulate cultural change in how society views and values older people. The week will involve the use of billboards showing a long line of birthday candles which seek to celebrate ageing, and national and local radio advertisements which encourage all to reflect on how we can so easily stereotype older people. The National Union of Journalists is organising an event to highlight the role of the media in challenging ageism. The Say No to Ageism week seeks to support institutional change in the way organisations provide services to older people. A publication entitled, Towards Age Friendly Provision of Goods and Services, which provides practical guidance for organisations, is being widely distributed. The Health Service Executive will launch an action programme during the week involving 16 different health service organisations. The transport sector will launch an action programme during the week involving Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, the rural transport initiative, Luas and larnród Éireann.

Some commentators regard our changing demographic which predicts an increase in the median age of the population as a liability but I regard the unexpectedly rapid increase in life expectancy as an unalloyed blessing. The majority of older people are healthy and fit. Unjustified discrimination on the ground of age is not only hurtful to those who are its victims but also represents a dramatic waste of knowledge, experience and wisdom. At a time when employers are finding it difficult to recruit and retain competent workers, a prejudice against older people is bad business sense.

Our booming economy has already transformed the economic reality of women shown by an unprecedented increase in participation rates by women in the labour force. Progressive employers are now identifying the particular advantages older people can give to an increasingly diverse workforce.

The Employment Equality Acts and the Equal Status Acts outlaw discrimination on the ground of age. The provisions with regard to age were strengthened in the Equality Act 2004 which gave effect to the EU anti-discrimination employment directive. The Employment Equality Acts are framed on the basis of a general principle that where the employee is willing to undertake or continue to undertake, or will accept or continue to accept, the conditions under which the duties are required to be performed and is fully competent and available to undertake and fully capable of undertaking the duties attached to the position, there ought to be no discrimination on the ground of age. Certain exceptions are provided for in cases such as the emergency services and the Defence Forces.

The Equality Act 2004 amended the exclusion in the 1998 Act from discrimination on the age ground in respect of persons less than 18 years of age or 65 years or over. In the former case, a provision based on the statutory age for school leavers is provided and employers may continue to set minimum recruitment ages where these do not exceed 18 years. Both of these are intended to avoid any undermining of State policy to discourage early school leaving which might result from the anti-discrimination code. No upper age threshold is provided for but compulsory retirement ages may continue to be set.

To fit the equality provisions with the more general body of employment protection law, the Equality Act 2004 made two consequent provisions in respect of older employees. The first is to allow employers to offer fixed term contracts to persons over the set retirement age without being in contravention of employment protection law governing permanent and temporary employment and employees' rights in this context. The second provision extended the employment protection law governing unfair dismissals to persons regardless of their age, so long as they are still in employment.

The Equal Status Act 2000 prohibits discrimination on the ground of age in the access to and the supply of goods and services. This Act has already shown it has teeth when it comes to protecting the rights of older people. In the case of Ross v. Royal and Sun Alliance, the equality officer found that the operation of an across the board policy of refusing motor insurance quotations to persons over 70 years of age is in conflict with the Act. The general principle of equality requires people in the same situation to be treated equally. Conversely, it requires different treatment for people in different situations. Older people can have special needs, for example, in the areas of housing and health. For this reason, the Equal Status Act specifically permits housing authorities to provide priority in housing for older people.

In the budget of 2006 the Government allocated additional funding for health services for older people and palliative care amounting to €150 million. This amounts to an additional €110 million for 2006 and an additional €40 million for 2007. Approximately two thirds of this money was allocated to community support for older people. This is in line with the focus on keeping people in their own homes, in independence and dignity, with a well-funded and viable alternative to residential care with proper health and social support systems in place in the form of, among other supports, home care packages. This year Health Service Executive staff throughout the country will take part in initiatives in the workplace that will challenge ageism and promote awareness and understanding of the issues of ageism. The HSE is involved for the third year in organising and promoting this campaign.

I thank the Equality Authority, the HSE and the National Council on Ageing and Older People for organising Say No To Ageism week and I wish them well in their endeavours.