THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
We might like to think in the autumn of our years we have never had it so good. Thanks to advancements in nutrition and medicine, not to mention those (no thanks!) elective cosmetic treatments, our picture of ageing has changed radically in the past decades.
In my lifetime, life expectancy has risen from 69 to 78 years.
News reaches me that by 2031 there will be almost half a million people aged 65 or older, according to Social Justice Ireland. The same year, around 136,000 also will be 85 years or older.
Researchers warn this demographic change could put a strain on services and infrastructure. We are ill-prepared to cope with an ageing population. This growing sector will be
associated with higher levels of disability and long-term ill-health and now is the time for planning and investment.
The story is we all age differently. Not every 70-year-old is like every 70-year-old – I speak from experience. There are compelling reasons for having a positive attitude towards ageing on a personal level. It can make all the difference to how we age. Studies have found that optimism can have a protective effect against ill-health and add years to a lifespan.
Professor of Gerontology at TCD Rose Anne Kenny in her best-selling book Age Proof writes: “How young or old one actually feels influences how quickly we age. In other words, the cellular process which characterises ageing can be controlled by attitudes and perception.”
While we count our age chronologically in years, biological or physiological is a far more relevant way of measuring how we are each ageing and that can vary widely. Understanding of the science of ageing is still developing and the search continues to find accurate ways of measuring biological ageing.
Meantime, we all get lumped together – and in many cases ignored. During the Covid pandemic, people aged 65 and older, were all collectively labeled ‘high risk’ — regardless of their health — and instructed to stay home, to cocoon in Ga Ga Land. Some have been afraid to go outdoors ever since. Stigmatising all older people as Ga Ga is wrong. Just wrong.
Even before Covid – as far back as 2016 and in the light of the housing crisis of the last 13 years and more – there have been ongoing calls across all political opinion for older people, whose offspring have flown the nest, to sell their family home, where they are now sole occupier, and trade down to “help aid the housing crisis”.
An estimated 67 per cent of people in the Republic are living in homes that are too big for their needs, according to new research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). The study found that Ireland has an under-occupancy rate of 67.3 per cent, across all ages, putting it in the top three in Europe – with Malta and Cyprus – in terms of under-occupancy. The EU average is 33.6 per cent, around half our figure.
The data shows that more than 88 per cent of people over 65 years live in under-occupied housing. Under-occupation is also more prevalent in higher-income households.
According to Alone, providing downsized homes for older people is “the best way to free up houses and deal with the housing crisis”. And Alone are not alone with such a stance.
Well, pardon me for breathing and for living in my four bed house – alone. My sons come to stay and their mother still shares half equity.
Pensioners are not commodities: their sole purpose is not to make room for families and live on meagre budgets so that they can leave an inheritance. When you have spent years in a property, it’s not just a house but your home. It’s where you saw your children take their first steps, where every crook and creak is an old friend – in your house. It’s where you had the best and the worst times of your life. Memories dwell under its eaves.
Even if you were ready to part ways there are many obstacles. Cost is a big one – in particular stamp duty. Some argue that making those whole downsize exempt from such would go someway to tackling the crisis. This is just a sticking plaster of sorts. There are other relevant issues which are not being addressed.
The only way I’m closing the door behind me is when I leave in a box.
It’s time the Government got its house in order…
