Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I call for a debate on the issue of ageism, which I have raised before. I would like the Members of the House to go to the GPO. We have had a lot of truck about the relocation of the Abbey Theatre to the GPO in honour of the 1916 centenary. As a child and a teenager, every time we came to Dublin my father brought me to Cúchulainn's statute at the front of the GPO to read the Proclamation of 1916. Everybody should visit it and bring their children. One of the profound sentences in it is that we would cherish all of our children equally. That meant all people in society.

Today, I wish to raise the matter of the forced retirement of people at 60 and 65 years of age. Ageism is endemic in our society. The Equality Authority gets more complaints about ageism than any other issue. In the United States, research has proven that at the age of 65, men will live another 17 years and women will live another 20 years, on average. The Irish Examiner in a piece today said it is daft to exclude older people from the workforce when they have judgment, experience and networking skills.

I call on the Government to have vision with regard to including older people at a time of recession. Many people in the public sector have taken early retirement, which is their choice. I am talking about the choice of men and women in this country to retire if they so wish. In the United States, one can take early retirement and early pension at 62, or full pension at 65, but one can stay on and work after 65 if one so wishes. Why the heck can we not wake up in this country and include that cohort of older people who have plenty of skills?