September 24, 2006

Youth is widely regarded as the most precious commodity in modern Ireland . We see ourselves as a young nation, populated by vibrant young people. The qualities we most ardently celebrate about our economy and culture — dynamism, ambition, audacity and vigor — are essentially the traits of youthfulness.

Viewed from another angle, however, the most telling feature of modern Ireland is the shameful disregard with which we treat the old.

The past week has seen several disturbing pointers to the scale of this neglect. First, there’s the continuing scandal of the refusal by the Health Service Executive ( HSE ) to publish the investigative report it commissioned into the Leas Cross nursing home in north Dublin .

Alarm was raised about the treatment of residents at Leas Cross almost 18 months ago following the broadcast of secretly filmed footage by RTE’s Prime Time.

Patients were shown lying in their own filth, their multiple bedsores left untreated. Some staff were seen bullying patients. Care assistants were filmed sleeping during nightshifts while the anguished cries of their charges went unheeded.

The HSE commissioned a report on the home from Professor Des O’Neill, one of our most eminent geriatricians. O’Neill submitted his findings five months ago, but the HSE has refused to either publish or release them under the Freedom of Information Act, citing “legal considerations” as an excuse.

The report is believed to be critical of health service management. O’Neill has said the failings he has identified are “grave, disturbing and system-wide”. What we’ve seen from the HSE , therefore, is the familiar ducking and dodging of a state organisation that refuses to be accountable for its actions. Self-preservation has become more important for the bureaucrats than their duty of care to the elderly.

Last week we also learnt that Ireland now has the second-worst rate of poverty among older people in the European Union. According to a report carried out for the European Commission, 40% of over-65s are at risk of poverty, the highest percentage in any EU country bar Cyprus .

The government has played a role, too, in impoverishing the elderly, as we were reminded last week by newspaper advertisements inviting applications for repayment of money illicitly docked from the pensions of long-stay residential patients. Legal advice about the unconstitutionality of the scheme has been available for decades, but health service mandarins — so quick to use the law in their own defence — simply ignored it.

Abandoned by their families, abused by the healthcare system and ripped off by the state, old people have much to fear from youth-obsessed modern Ireland .

Sooner or later, the government will have to appoint a regulator for the regulatory industry. The latest proposed addition to our vast army of supposed public watchdogs is a waste management regulator, a position that the environment minister, Dick Roche, says could be created early next year.

While he doesn’t want to pre-empt the decision of “a high-level group” he’s established to examine this proposal, Roche says he personally favors appointing one. The regulator’s job, he insists, would be to standardize the collection and recycling of waste by both local authorities and the private sector.

Or at least that’s the theory. In reality, so-called regulators almost invariably become a rubber-stamping facility for price increases by operators. This is certainly what happened with Tom Reeves, the energy regulator, who recently approved enormous hikes in gas and electricity bills on the grounds of increases in the price of oil.

Naturally, there is no prospect of the same regulator ordering a reduction in ESB and Bord Gais bills now that oil prices have begun to fall again. Governments love appointing regulators. They create the illusion of accountability and joined-up thinking.

More importantly, they provide ministers with a layer of well-paid fall guys to take the blame when price rises are demanded by service providers. Waste management? Waste of management, more like.

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