REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT AN EVENT TO CELEBRATE POSITIVE AGEING WEEK 2010
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT AN EVENT TO CELEBRATE POSITIVE AGEING WEEK 2010 29, GEORGIAN MUSEUM, LOWER FITZWILLIAM STREET
Dia dhíbh go léir inniu a chairde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
It is good to be back again in the lovely setting of No. 29 to mark Positive Ageing Week 2010 and to visit the Positive Ageing Week Photographic Exhibition. I would particularly like to thank Robin Webster, CEO of Age Action Ireland for his invitation and to thank each one of you for committing with such enthusiasm to this festival of celebration that Positive Ageing Week has become. Thanks to Age Action and their sponsor, ESB Customer Supply, this week has become well-established in the annual calendar of national awareness-raising events. It brings an important balance and focus to a public space that is more often than not oriented towards younger age groups and their interests and where the older population can feel relegated to a second division. But thanks to Age Action Ireland and many other organisations and groups across Ireland, the interests, concerns, needs, contribution and potential of older people is getting a more engaged hearing than in the past and the axis of interest is beginning to shift in their direction.
There are things on the agenda today that were simply absent a short time ago: an emphasis on positive ageing, on ongoing social, physical and intellectual activity and life-long learning, on volunteering with fresh new ideas, on harnessing the phenomenal skills base represented by our retired citizens, on greater scrutiny of the experiences of vulnerable older citizens with more accountability and access to help, and on more research and insight into the needs and desires of the chronically and terminally ill. There has been a relentless and successful assault on the simplistic assumption that discussions about ageing should jump immediately into issues to do with passivity, decline, increased infirmity and dependency. These are certainly part of the spectrum of issues that ageing gives rise to, but they are a long way from being the whole story and at a time of severe economic retrenchment, as we count our remaining blessings, foremost among them is an older generation with lived experience of resilience and survival through tough and turbulent times. Grandparents are already the backbone of childcare, of elder care, of voluntary organisations. Our older citizens have their shoulder to the wheel of national progress in millions of seen but more often, unseen ways.
What is more, this is a generation with time and talent, skill and wisdom in abundance. The organisations and projects which are already tapping into that huge under-used resource are revealing to us a capacity for infusing into all our lives a stabilising energy and a dynamic creativity with considerably wider application and potential. In the past few months alone, I have seen some of that work in action and it is inspirational. DCU’s Intergenerational Learning project which I saw earlier this year has created a rich learning environment for young third level students and older learners many of whom had never before been over the door of a third level institution. Each participant was simultaneously both tutor and learner and crucially all felt they had not only benefitted from the shared learning environment but that they had tapped into something very worthwhile. The GAA’s Social Initiative aimed at the social inclusion of older people is building both on the caring culture of the GAA and its national yet local network. The very encouraging and successful pilot phase is over and now with the appointment of a new national director, the Initiative is set to really make a difference across the country. I was hugely impressed by the work of Muintir na Tíre particularly in community safety initiatives for the elderly and of course I got to see first hand the transfer of skills from the Irish Senior Citizens Helpline to their newly established New York counterpart. Week in and week out, the Áras hosts groups of seniors from rambling clubs to active retirees associations to day care centre users or nursing home patients. I got a letter from Meath County Council telling me that their Tone Zone initiative has now been rolled out in thirty other places nationwide and that a local supplier is now making the exercise equipment for older people. And of course, who will forget the pictures of Micheál O’Muirheartaigh’s 80th birthday as he strode to the top of Mount Brandon. The evidence is mounting rapidly that the Positive Ageing movement has over the past two decades turned the tide of thinking about ageing and how we actually experience ageing. Thanks to your determination, ageing is no longer seen as an endgame but as an opportunity for new challenges and new beginnings.
Thoreau once said ‘None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.’ The photographs from the ‘Generations Together’ photographic competition are a showcase for the truth of that statement for they depict exuberance and joy in life that transcends the wrinkles and lines that mark our advancing years. Each one is a powerful statement about how much more important attitude is than age. Age is just a number we cannot change. Positive Attitude is a power we can use to make changes.
The changes we want and need are about the business of creating an age-friendly, age-dynamic Ireland and thanks to this week and to the year round work of Age Action and others who champion the causes of our senior citizens, we are getting a glimpse of what an age-friendly Ireland could be in the years to come.
I would like to thank you again for giving me the pleasure of being here on this wonderful occasion and I wish every success to Positive Ageing Week 2010.
Gurb fada buan sibh ‘s go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.