Last weekend I was in Dublin to attend a national meeting of Labour
Youth (why these meetings can never be held outside of the Pale I don't know,
but that's another story). We drove from
Cork (in only two hours it has to be said) and took the Luas from the Red Cow
park and ride facility to the city centre.
On the way in, I couldn't help but notice that on every stop there were
posters highlighting the issue of ageism.
A worthy cause, no doubt. The
recent controversy over the pension levy on private pensions, as well as these
posters, made me stop and think about the whole issue of ageing. The more I thought about it, the more I
realised that the public discourse on this issue is dominated by the question
of looking after older people, and that another form of ageism is being
obscured – the obstacles facing young people.
Hear me out.
Young people are in an age group which is most at risk to a whole
plethora of dangers, some social and some economic. These include a much higher risk of
depression and suicide, emigration, psychological disorders such as
self-harming, bulimia and anorexia, unemployment (unemployment amongst young
people is around 20% on the last count, against a national average of 14%),
road deaths and STIs. While some of
these dangers are due to naiveté and ignorance (such as speeding or not using
contraception), the vast chunk of them are due to wider societal and economic
factors and attitudes. There is no doubt
that there are massive challenges for older people, and I do not seek to
belittle these hardships. However, I
believe that at the moment in Ireland there is an attitude amongst some of the
media and politicians, as well as the general public, which is entirely
dismissive of young people and their talents.
This is the first generation of young people in decades which will have
a worse standard of living than their parents.
Positive coverage of technological innovation or charity work amongst
young people is overwhelmed by negative headlines concerning young hoodlums,
unresponsible teenage mothers and excessive boozing (or sometimes all three
together). Of course all these
stereotyped characters exist, but that is why a stereotype is a stereotype –
they are rarely true.
I believe the best time to be a teenager in
Ireland was probably in the early noughties.
The Celtic Tiger was roaring, registration fees for third-level
education were negligable and someone was spoiled for choice when it came to
jobs. Some Celtic Cubs even got cars and
holidays for their birthdays as a matter of course. During this time, the middle-aged
professional classes were mortgaging their childrens' futures by buying second
and third houses at highly-inflated prices.
These property gambles have now of course been proven to be reckless,
and who is going to foot the bill through NAMA? The taxpayer, and more
specifically, the younger generation.
While I'm sure that most middle class taxpayers bought homes in good
faith, thinking that the price was only going to go higher, they must share a
portion of the blame for the collapse.
Evidently the blame (or even the majority of
the blame) is not exclusive to mortgagees – the banks and politicians were the
ones who fostered and encouraged this culture of greed and recklessness. Ireland became a moral wasteland in which
wealth and status were seemingly all that mattered to people. What do all these major actors have in
common? They are all middle-aged. Of course, this is nothing to be ashamed
about. But what really annoys me is that
those in charge of our economy, and our wider society, seem to have forgetten
to have empathy with those that are different to themselves – this includes the
elderly, the poor and young people.
For example, the first cutbacks in the
education sector were not aimed at those in administration or the highest
earners - they were aimed at cutting the number of special-need teachers, as
well as steadily raising the registration fee, so that now it is a tuition fee
in all but name. Grants for
disadvantaged students have been slashed, and funding for worthwhile capital
projects have been put on the long finger.
University presidents demand for third-level fees to be re-introduced,
adding a further financial burden to already struggling students, while they
themselves are pocketing six figure salaries, and in some cases, claiming six
figure expenses. The minimum wage was
cut by 13% with the questionable objective of boosting employment, while all it
would have done is further hammer the lowest-paid and students. The moral hypocrisy amongst the elite in our
republic absolutely stinks.
So basically all I'm asking for is a public
debate which is not sensationalist and looks to seriously assess who is being
hurt most by this economic depression.
Most retirees have their mortgage payed off. The state pension has doubled in the last ten
years. There is no doubt that elderly
people are in danger of being overcome by financial worries, but in my opinion,
no more so than any other age-group in the country. Meanwhile, the retirement age for those under
50 was raised from 65 to 67, with it later rising further to 68 years of
age. While this change is vital because
of increasing life expectancy and the state of the public finances, it is
another measure which will hammer younger generations. Indeed, the lack of coverage this measure
received was surprising to me considering its importance in the future.
But of course, that is just the problem with
Irish society at the minute. We are only
concerned about the here-and-now.
Guarantee all the toxic debts of the banks and leave it to the next
generation to pay off this debt. Slash
the education budget and forget about the consequences. It is this kind of short sightedness which
has gotten us to this current predicament and an impulse we must shed in order
to avoid another depression of this kind.
However I believe that if anyone can discard that viewpoint, this generation
of young people can.
