Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State who is taking this debate, the holding of which I very much support. I congratulate the Equality Authority on taking on board the campaign of Say No To Ageism. It is timely and it should be run on an annual basis. Our population is ageing. The performance of a country and a Government can be judged on how well they look after their older people. The Government's performance can be judged by examining how well everybody in our community is looked after, particularly our older people.

Some people cope much better with the challenges presented by advancing years than others. This depends perhaps on their health. Luckily many of our older people are much healthier and fitter than the previous generation and, therefore, they will live longer. However, many others will encounter difficulties. It is those difficulties and barriers they encounter in their older years that will present the greatest challenge for them. Ensuring that they have the respect, dignity and independence they deserve depends on how well we address those difficulties and barriers.

Many people are not being well looked after and ageism is a factor for them. Many of them encounter great difficulties in accessing health services. The Minister of State referred to the allocation in the 2006 budget for services for older people and palliative care. As we have often discussed here, we know that level of funding is not sufficient to keep many of our older people in the manner in which any of us would want our ageing mothers or fathers to be kept. Many more older people should be living at home rather than in nursing homes or hospitals but because they do not have the necessary support services to do that they end up in nursing homes, which is not the best place for them.

Many older women in particular, women who had to leave the workforce because of the marriage bar, are dependent on their spouses for their pension. This matter, which I have raised on a number of occasions, needs to be tackled. To give women in their older years the independence they deserve, we should give their portion of the pension directly to them, and that should be mandatory. They get their pension by choice, but it is discriminatory that they do not get it as a right, rather they have had to seek it. There may be special family circumstances which prohibit them from seeking this portion of their pension directly in their own name. I ask the Minister of State to use his power to change that aspect and thereby grant those women the independence they deserve.

We could address this matter in another way by extending the homemakers' scheme to those women who chose to stay at home and to the many women who were forced to do so. That includes a large number of farmers' wives who worked on the farm and women who worked in their husbands' business or the family shop, as relatives assisting, as they were termed. The homemakers' scheme should be extended to those women to enable them to be given a pension in their own right. I hope the Government will take on board that suggestion.

A large number of people are approaching the age range of 60 to 65 and will retire in the next few years. However, many of them are fit and healthy and do not wish to retire. We should examine measures that could be put in place to allow people to work beyond the ages of 65 or 66 if they want to do so. Such a measure should not be mandatory, which some other countries are considering. Some countries like France, Spain and Germany considered going down the mandatory route of extending the retirement age, but that met with great opposition. Germany has pulled back from that suggestion and is considering extending the retirement age by one month per year from 2008 up to 2032. Perhaps that is a proposal we could consider. Choice should surround such a measure.

If people want to work longer or if they would like to work in a more flexible fashion, employers should be compelled to allow them to work part time. In doing that they will defer taking up their pension and when they subsequently retire, their pension will be higher. Finland has introduced a measure in this area whereby bonus pensions are given to people who do not retire until the age of 68. If people here chose to work longer, they will receive a higher pension, the Government will benefit as a result of the additional tax revenues and the economy will also improve. The measure introduced in Finland has been proven to work well.

Many people approaching retirement age find their pensions are inadequate. They find they will not realise the value they expected from their pension scheme despite having paid into it for many years. Extending the retirement age is a way of assisting people in funding their pension. We should facilitate that. Furthermore, it is a proposal that the Pensions Board has recommended and the Minister for Social and Family Affairs is interested in examining, but it should be a matter of choice.

We should not force people to work beyond retirement age. Many people would not be able to do the same type of job that they have done for many years, particularly if it consisted of hard physical work. For example, a labourer would not be able to continue after retirement age doing the type of work he did in the past. Therefore, we must consider the element of flexibility and provide a flexible workplace for older people in the same way as we must do for people with young families, particularly women. We can examine both ends of the spectrum and accommodate people by making the work-life balance much better for people. Ireland is in the happy position of having a large pool of young workers. It is not like other countries where there is a shortage of workers and they are considering the introduction of regulations to force the older workforce to continue at work. Happily, we are not in this position and can therefore extend the retirement age, by choice, for those who want it. We have to work at changing attitudes and I welcome the Equality Authority's billboard campaign in that regard. There are those who have stereotypical attitudes about older people. That is hard to take if a person is the subject of some ageist remark. It is something that needs to be tackled and I believe this campaign will work. However, we need to keep at it.

While the population is ageing at the moment, the older age group is nonetheless becoming a force to be reckoned with. I welcome that and believe that the Government and political parties will listen to what they have to say. They are telling us that they need more recognition. Those who shout the loudest tend to get what they want. I welcome the fact that older people and their organisations are getting stronger and looking for their rights. They are looking for better health services and community care, better pensions etc. Unfortunately, successive Governments, not just this one, have ignored older people for far too long. I welcome the fact that there are good organisations in place now. Older people are themselves very vocal in expressing what they want. Of course, there is a large group of people, too, who cannot voice their opinions and we must do it for them. We must ensure that we look after much older people, in particular, those who are ill or have disabilities and those in their 80s and 90s. We are not looking after them very well, however, in terms of delivering the health services they require.

I welcome this campaign and believe there is a great deal to be done. The Equality Authority has said discrimination based on age has accounted for just over 12% of cases of alleged discrimination under employment equality legislation. That figure is very high and is something we need to look at. We must do everything we can to ensure that such discrimination does not continue and to put in place practices that will help to eliminate it. We can help to avoid ageism by ensuring that all our legislation is "equality proofed". Local authorities must be vigilant as regards their policies, whether on housing or whatever. They must ensure that any policies they introduce will not discriminate against people in terms of access to buildings, office opening times etc. This initiative is to be welcomed. I hope it is something we can come back to because this is a growing issue and needs to be addressed.