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Written by Maeve Casserly & James Kelly
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James Kelly:
Last week in the United Kingdom, equality watchdog the Equality and Human Rights Commission backed the plans of the Labour government to stop forcing workers to retire at the age of 65, and to give them more flexible working hours.
These sentiments echo those of Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman, who earlier in January announced plans to fast track a report on retirement age. Now, while these radical plans have been met with almost universal approval thus far, few have stopped to look at the possible negative side effects it could have on those over 65 and society as a whole.
In Ireland, youth unemployment has been spiralling, hitting a shocking 28.4% in October 2009. These youths who choose to sign on to social welfare must survive on ninety euro per week. The situation is similar across the EU and the United Kingdom in particular. The question that must be asked is whether jobs and opportunities that could go to these youths will be retained by older people who choose not to retire if these radical plans get the go ahead?
Many of those choosing to work beyond retirement age will have solid pension schemes to greet them when they deign to retire, but what will the youth have? The teen years of this century have already been dubbed a “debtcade” by some, and it will be the young who will be left footing the bill, but how can they expect to do so with potential opportunities and jobs being occupied by those working past retirement?
While some of those nearing retirement age cannot imagine a life not centred on work, many retirees have found a new lease of life they never thought possible after quitting work. By not working after the age of 65, people gain the time to discover new interests and experience new tastes.
Retirees have become a huge market for travel, and by retiring they have given themselves the opportunity to see countries they never thought they would visit. After retirement, gardening and cooking can be truly embraced, new languages learned and new books read. The list is literally endless. By retiring at the age of 65, people can discover, if you’ll pardon the cheesy line, a new world of interests and experiences. If they are allowed to continue working indefinitely then these opportunities become closed off.
The idea that those over 65 are “past it” is not what this argument is about, but surely some kind of competency criteria must be laid in place. At the age of 65 many employers are not able to perform or work to the same standard as younger people. Thus, if they are not up to the job, they shouldn’t be working and it’s as simple as that. While it may sound harsh, a competency test is necessary should a person choose to work past retirement age. Not only may such a test be seen as being insulting to these people, but they would be very expensive to administer. In the current economic climate there is just not enough money to use these competency tests.
If the review of retirement age in the United Kingdom manages to change working practices, it may well have widespread repercussions. Already in Ireland sectors of the civil service are trying to extend the retirement age of their employees. I’m not saying that the review shouldn’t happen.
What I am arguing is that, rather than greeting the news with universal praise, the Labour government and the different workers group involved in the review should look at the facts objectively. If they do so they will see that while working past retirement may be a positive thing for some people, it comes with a lot of negative side effects.
Maeve Casserly:
Firstly let us establish a fact that should be patently obvious: people do not wake up on the morning of their 65th birthday and suddenly become wholly incompetent at their jobs. So why is it that they can be forced into retirement in their “golden years”?
This debate has been raging in Westminster since early last year when former Secretary for the Department of Work and Pension James Purnell was approached by Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR), gauging his interest in bringing in a more flexible retirement policy to help prevent a future pension crisis. The deliberation continues as the government is facing increasing pressure from all sides to revise the law.
In a recent statement, the deputy chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission demanded that the cabinet scrap the “out of date bill which discriminates against people who want to carry on working.” As it stands the enforcement of retirement at the age of 65 is at the discretion of the employer.
In the latest survey carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), 60% of small companies do not think that the government should set a default retirement age. John Wright, National Chairman of the FSB, argued against the unfair policy in recent a interview. “We understand understand the valuable contribution and skills that older workers bring to the business … [O]ver 90% of small firms would consider an employee going into part time or flexible working, rather than retiring.” However, this still does not protect the older employee’s right to work.
For most people it is not simply that they want to continue to work, they have to. In the UK the Basis State Retirement Pension for a single person is £90.70 a week. Unlike their Irish counterparts, British pensioners do not receive government subsidies for essential amenities like electricity and home heating. The cost of living requires people to keep working.
Thanks to improved social and medical conditions, people are now living longer. But there are fewer younger people to work and pay taxes. This will create a major problem for governments in the future. There are now 10.5 million pensioners in the UK. This is expected to rise to 12.5 million by 2025 and to 14 million by 2050. While there are now 4.5 working people to every pensioner, by 2025 there will only be 3.5. The current legislation is therefore completely impractical and should be immediately revised by the government if there is any hope for future economic recovery.
In a recent survey by the Equality of Human Right Commission of 1,500 people, 62% of women and 59% of men indicated that they wished to continue to work beyond pension age. How can we simply ignore the wishes of all these people? Elaine Stritch, current guest star of the hit television series 30 Rock, has just opened a new Stephen Sondheim show in New York to rave reviews. She turns 85 this week! Stories like this are inspiring example to us all that older people still have a lot to This debate is not however about glamorous stars of stage and screen.
With the cutoff age for the state pension set to rise to 66 in 2024 and 67 a decade after this, retirement law is simply impractical and outdated. If we have learned anything from the massive economic crash of the last few years, it is that we must deal with future economic problems now. The inflexible fixed retirement age is one of these problems. Let us hope that the government sees this before it is too late. |
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Written by Sorcha Pollak
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An Arts Festival in Trinity? Up until five years ago the idea was unheard of, but now it is one of the highlights of the academic year, a week to brighten up the dull February days. Why have I decided to write about it for this column? Is it because it will be all around us for the next week? No. Is it because it’s an opportunity to learn a new skill? Not necessarily. It’s because I’m somewhat annoyed that I never got fully involved.
When I was in first year I made a pathetic attempt to join in with the festival’s activities but was scared away by the fact that I didn’t know anyone. Being nineteen years old in a room full of confident, older students, I was daunted by the undertakings of TAF. Also, in the throes of first year enthusiasm and wanting to be involved with everything at the same time, I realised that time constraints and other commitments would not allow to me to take part.
But now, four years down the line, the time has come to sit up, take action and learn how to make origami and customise clothes. This time it isn’t about getting involved in the organisation but instead, simply enjoying the activities they offer. The reality is that, four years later, working in the arts is something that really interests me, and for that reason I am kicking myself for not having been more involved to date. But if you can’t join them, you can always write about them!
The sheer number of activities for this year’s festival seems challenging yet impressive. There’s something in it for everyone. Two days ago, when I logged into my Facebook account for my “brief” daily check-up, I was surprised to see that I had eleven event invitations. Now, as much as I would like to count myself as someone with a comfortably wide circle of friends, I had never been so popular as to receive eleven invitations in one afternoon.
By taking a quick glance at these events I was slightly disappointed to find out that they weren’t personalised requests for my presence but a wide spread of invitations to this weeks Trinity Arts Festival. This fleeting disappointment was quickly replaced by interest and excitement in the activities which were on offer. Being the young lady that I am, customising clothes jumped out at me instantly. Despite the fact that I refuse to recognise that I can barely thread a needle, I was immediately signing up for an afternoon of creating my own fashion masterpieces.
Next on the list was a photography workshop. Once again, this is not an area in which I am an expert, but my thinking was if that I can hold a camera, a more knowledgeable person in the area could explain the rest. The list continued: jewellery making, origami workshop, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” in the Samuel Beckett Theatre, film writing and something called “Circus Spectacle”. I realised that this week of activities could be the break from academic work I was searching for and I set about discovering more about this year’s Trinity Arts Festival.
Having been originally set up by Art History and Architecture students, it is understandable that the primary focus of the original festival was on art in its pure, visual form; art exhibitions, studies of architecture on campus, and drawing and painting workshops. For the events of this week to become a truly rounded festival, encompassing the full spectrum of the arts, the vision of its organisers needed to be somewhat broadened. In an attempt to get a better understanding of what was being done this year to reach a wider platform and audience, I spoke to the secretary of the festival, Katy Dobey.
Dobey informed me that the organisers of the festival were striving towards creating a more comprehensive week of events this year by featuring not only the visual arts but by bringing in aspects of theatre, music and comedy.
With the help of societies like Players, Singers, Comedy Soc and Orchestral Soc this week of festivities is shaping up to the be the most impressive and ambitious yet. In addition to this, Dobey explained to me that this year a full printed programme of the events would be provided to give the students of Trinity a greater understanding of the festival itself and its events. There was no doubt about it, this week of artistic enjoyment had been laid out to suit my needs.
The idea of a Trinity Arts Festival was revived in the mid-2000s, with the idea of making the arts in their widest sense accessible to all the students on the campus. It was created as an opportunity for the students of Trinity College to embrace arts and culture within the walls of this university. With the topic of the funding of the arts still very prominent in the news headlines, this year’s college arts festival is probably more important than ever.
We are living in a world where there is constant discussion of business, finance and the economic future of our country, a discussion so powerful that it has drowned out other aspects of life which are also important to the future of the state. Ireland is a country steeped in culture and we, the younger generation, need to recognise the importance of its survival. The Trinity Arts Festival celebrates the character and the beauty of the arts, whether it be through painting or song, dance or theatre.
This week is for us to enjoy our culture, so let’s make the most of it. |
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Written by David Barrett
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If Democrats had any doubt that the Party is in dire straits, they were set straight by the Massachusetts Special Senate Election for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat that saw a conservative Republican unknown defeat the highly popular state Attorney General by a 100,000 vote margin. What made the defeat even worse was that the entire campaign was fought on the issue of healthcare, which Kennedy called “the cause of my life”, a battle which the Democrats lost in a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by a margin of three to one.
The troubles in the Democratic party are confirmed by the generic ballot, a poll that simply asks whom voters would be more likely to support in their congressional district, the Democratic or Republican candidate. Republicans currently lead by an average of about four percentage points across the board. This is actually much worse than it sounds. Democrats have traditionally dominated in this category, due to the fact that there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, who balance this at the polling station with higher turnout from their supporters. The only years in which the Republicans have led in the generic ballot were 1994, when the party took control of congress for the first time since 1952, and 2002, in the wake of the September 11th attacks.
The “intensity gap” has completely reversed since the presidential election, when Democrats were fired up on a brew of “hope” and “change” while Republicans were never truly convinced that John McCain was one of their own. Now, liberal Democrats are disillusioned with Obama’s more practical and less ideological approach and his seeming inability to get anything done despite nearly unprecedented congressional majorities. Republicans on the other hand see Obama’s very limited reforms as the first step towards a form of state-socialism that will bankrupt the country and destroy the American way.
Republicans are practically salivating at the prospect of winning the “trifecta” in the Senate elections. For maximum symbolic value the party wants to steal seats in Nevada, Illinois and Delaware from the Democrats, a feat that would be as mentally scarring to the Democrats as Massachusetts.
The worrying thing for the party is that the chances of the Republicans managing this are better than evens. The reason why this would be so devastating for the Democrats, aside from just simply losing three crucial Senate seats, is what the seats represent. The sitting senator for Nevada is Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic Leader and one of the most powerful men in Washington. He is consistently trailing in opinion polls to unknown Republicans.
Illinois and Delaware are both heavily Democratic states, but more importantly these seats are the ones once held Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the mere fact that these seats even need to be defended is a bad sign. While there is still hope for Illinois, the White House appears to have given up on Delaware, where the likely Republican candidate is the state’s only congressman, a position he has held for eighteen years, before which he was governor. To top it all off he is a direct descendent of Benjamin Franklin.
However these are not the only seats looking vulnerable to a Republican takeover. North Dakota – whose sitting Democratic senator is retiring after eighteen years in office – is considered nearly a write-off at this stage.
Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, a centrist Democrat, is having serious difficulty highlighting to her constituents the (considerable) differences between her and the Obama White House, while Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado is trying to avoid his election bid being characterised as a battle between a generic Democrat and a generic Republican in a typical swing-state.
The cases of Lincoln and Bennett manifest a clear issue for the Democratic Party that the Massachusetts election made painfully obvious. If being associated with Obama in one of the most liberal states in the nation is a bad thing electorally, then it must be pure poison in Arkansas and Colorado.
However even if one considers all of this, the obvious conclusion is that it doesn’t really matter. The Democrat’s Senate majority is eighteen seats and their House majority is seventy-eight. Both of these majorities are extraordinarily large by historical standards. The problem is that of internal party loyalty.
The Democrats have a quite considerable conservative Southern wing historically and part of the party’s policy to retake the House and Senate in 2006 was to nominate conservatives and centrists who could win in swing districts over ideologically pure liberals (who could be, and almost always were, nominated in safe areas). This means that the party has considerable internal differences.
By contrast, the Republicans have had two horrific elections in a row that tended to disproportionally claim members of the party’s liberal north-eastern wing as casualties, making the party much more united and homogenous, even if it is much smaller.
This is actually likely to get worse before it gets better as it is the conservative Democrats who will be disproportionally hit by the likely bad election – moving the Democrats to the left and making compromise between the two increasingly polarised parties less and less likely.
Since, according to Senate rules, sixty votes are needed to shut down a filibuster and actually get to a vote this makes America potentially unable to do anything at all – which is the worst of all possible worlds. |
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Written by unsigned
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Education committee unearths hidden gems of information
This month saw the Provost, alongside his fellow university heads, sit before the Oireachtas Education Committee, as reported on page one of this issue. The information extracted at this meeting was quite considerable: the admission by Hugh Brady, for example, that the use of the student charge amounted to fees by another name, or, perhaps of more interest, that the charge has been applied to areas that the casual student would never have thought could possibly be considered a student service. The information that the committee received was, first and foremost, news to them. In addition, there were allegations from the seven students’ unions that the information presented to the committee was different to that presented to the student body. In the end, the power of the committee on Education and Science unearthed some truths about the allocation of funding, but the process could be best described as murky. It was more akin to sifting through mud for nuggets of gold than the quick, easy, and simple access to information which many of us assume is the case with public bodies. The university now faces a potentially difficult challenge in justifying its categorisation of expenses to a government body. As was suggested by members of the committee, less effort should have been expended on balancing the books, and a more honest statement of financial difficulty should have been made. Only by recognising that the universities cannot afford to run a library, or repair roads or run an animal resources unit can the government and its agencies begin to even consider increasing financial support. This column has written before on the culture of secrecy within Trinity, though these latest developments demonstrate that it is a trait common to most, if not all, institutions of higher education in the country. While we do not wish to suggest any kind of illegal action on the part of this or any other institution, the need for transparency in all our public bodies is crystal clear. A well-run, efficiently managed institution may still hold the burden of a large deficit; conversely, an appalling shell of a university, which can barely afford to run its basic facilities, might conceivably manage to balance its figures by not holding any large capital debt. It should not require the intervention of elected officials and the sustained efforts of student groups form all over the country to tell one from the other. Less complexity is better– information should be easy to access, simple enough for the common man to understand, and adhere to a standard format.
Election promises and a pinch of salt
For the last number of years, this paper has made the same plea to the student population when the time comes to elect the sabbatical officers of next year’s Students’ Union: beware of election promises, which are all too easily forgotten. In an institution such as ours where everyday undergraduate stays only four years, the turnover between one year and the next is enormous. Of those who remain, many are apathetic in regard to student politics, and those who are enthusiastic about the topic are all too often friends, or closely associated with, the elected officers. Students’ Union sabbatical officers are paid a salary for their time. Staying within the comfortable confines of a university, and being paid for the privilege, is an attractive proposition to many, and doubtless we will see ludicrous claims from some corners as to what will be achieved should one person or another be elected. To older students, this will be a familiar experience; but to the younger population, take with a pinch of salt the promises of laser tag in front square and 24 hour library services (both of which were promised by past candidates, and which they had zero power to enact). This paper has, over the last few years, made a habit of re-examining the election promises of elected officers approximately half-way through their term of office: you can find the relevant piece on this year in our election special of this issue. Let the current candidates be aware, then, that there is a need to remember promises made once election day is long gone, and let us hope that the student body uses common sense in determining which goals are achievable, and which are nothing more than an elaborate wish which will never come true. |
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