Age Action Ireland is continuing its gutsy advocacy on behalf of older people with another Positive Ageing Week. The event - which began yesterday - and the agency's other activities aim to make Ireland the best place in which to grow old. Positive Ageing Week seeks to rekindle respect for elderly people which may have diminished in the hurly-burly of modern living. It stresses, too, that contrary to some perceptions, positive living does not end at pension age; that for many people it can be a new beginning.
There is also a consciousness that the elderly can be abused or denied opportunities purely because of their chronological age. Health Service Executive reports on some nursing homes, pinpointing sloppy medicine records, inadequate wound care, residents being woken deliberately at 5.30 am, and poor rodent control, are a manifestation of this.
Age Action has suggested the development of a National Dignity in Care programme. This imaginative initiative would involve the creation of residents' councils in all nursing homes, backed up by vigilant visiting committees. Another proposal is that citizens should be allowed the choice of deferring their State pension at 66 in return for higher payments later. Action of this kind would help to enhance protections and opportunities for the elderly. Much will depend in this regard on Government and the ability of Máire Hoctor, the new Minister of State for Older People, to galvanise her colleagues on ageing issues. The portents are not good. The three previous incumbents in this post had no impact which perhaps explains why the main Opposition parties failed to appoint Dáil spokespersons on ageing.
In the meantime, Positive Ageing Week's lighter side, the celebration of older age, goes on with up to 400 events around the country, cross-Border involvement, and an inter-faith service tomorrow in the Unitarian Church, at St Stephen's Green, Dublin. Indeed there is no reason why Positive Ageing Week should limit its boundaries. With backing from other "grey" agencies and sponsorship, the week could be promoted across Europe and could assist the development of corresponding events in other countries or liaise with existing ones.
The hospice friendly hospitals programme run by the Irish Hospice Foundation leads Europe with its five-year programme to ensure that every Irish citizen has a caring, careful death. A European Positive Ageing Week initiated from Ireland would further demonstrate that in matters of ageing, as well as death, dying and bereavement, this country could be a leader in tune with the demands and opportunities of an ageing population.