Member's statement: Ageism

Member's statement by Ms Paula Bradshaw on 1 October 2024.

MLA

Ms Paula Bradshaw

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

1 October 2024

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Ageism

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4562213

Read the official Assembly record

Text

On International Day of Older Persons, I rise to make a statement on the importance of tackling ageism, and I do so after attending an excellent event at Stormont last week run by Age NI where it talked about the results from its lived experience survey. The World Health Organization notes that ageism can have harmful effects on the well-being of old people and can lead to outright social exclusion. Too many assumptions are being made about how to plan for an ageing demographic without involving older people in that process. Across the UK, older people report feeling sidelined, forgotten about and dismissed by the health service, despite the fact that we are supposed to be transforming the service so that it better meets the needs of that ever-growing share of the population. Most notably perhaps, older people report that they are not given the time that they need to make decisions and that assumptions are made about their capacity to make choices about their care and treatment without adequate consultation. Members will know that the Committee for the Executive Office is carrying out an inquiry into gaps in equality legislation, looking particularly at what happens here versus what happens in neighbouring jurisdictions. There is a specific issue here regarding ageism. In Northern Ireland, age discrimination law is outdated, as it applies only to employment, training and vocational education. It is already over a decade since the Equality Commission advised that that law must be extended to cover goods, facilities and services. Indeed, over the past year alone, 34 people have contacted the Equality Commission about age discrimination in the provision of goods and services, and they were told that there was nothing that can be done as there are no relevant laws here.

The Equality Commission's functions include not only overseeing equality duties and promoting good relations but, specifically, keeping equality legislation under review. The commission has clearly stated for many years that our current equality legislation is inadequate. Therefore, the gaps in the law are not just technicalities; the failure to modernise equality law creates a significant and particular disadvantage that is directly and specifically felt by older people in Northern Ireland. When we tie that specific disadvantage to the experience that older people feel, we see that action is needed urgently to update our equality laws so that our older people are not placed at a disadvantage versus their peers elsewhere in the UK and Ireland.

409 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:15 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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