Jurassic Park

I happened to be watching some coverage of the European elections the other night (sad I know) when the name of Proinsias De Rossa was mentioned. It struck me that this lefty sticky has been around for as long as I can remember. I was sure that this old communist relic must be past retirement age by now so I did a bit of research to satisfy my curiosity. Sure enough Franky Sticky Ross is 69 years old. Now this got me annoyed. I know of a number of people who have recently reached the "mandatory" retirement age of 65 and been forced to quit jobs that they were perfectly willing and able to continue performing. However, as most contracts of employment in Ireland specify a retirement age of 65 or less, the ordinary men and women of this country are forced out of the workforce whether they like it or not.

Surprise surprise! The rules that apply to most of us poor fools do not apply to our legislators and their accomplices in the courts. A little bit more digging revealed the extent of how out of touch the Kildare Street Country Club is with the ordinary Irish person:

• 6 TDs over the age of 70
• At least 9 will be 65 or over by the end of 2009
• At least a further 15 will be 65 within two years

So that's 30 TDs who would be over the generally accepted retirement age of 65 before the 30th Dáil is due to finish its term. And the odds are that most of these antiques will stand for election to Dáil 31.

The situation in our Supreme Court is even worse. Of the 9 Supreme Court judges (including the President and Chief Justice) 5 are over 65 and all but one will be 65 within 2 years. But again, what applies to the common man doesn't apply to the judiciary. A judge in Ireland can legally keep his/her job until they are 70 years old (72 in the case of longer serving judges).

So the politicians can continue to rake in their sickening salaries, pensions and expenses indefinitely. The judges can sit in their golden towers until they are 72. But our fathers, mothers, grannies and grandads must give up work at 65 and hope that the bankers haven't raided their pension funds out of existence and that the government don't decide to remove their medical cards or cut the poxy state pension.

One would imagine that if it is acceptable for TDs and judges to do their "important" jobs into their 70s then it is fair to let the rest of the poor pixie Irish continue to work past 65 if they so wish. I don't particularly care if our parliament and courts resemble Jurassic Park or not. What I want to see is these cornerstones of Irish democracy reflecting the realities of Irish life. For this fair reflection to be achieved we should be seeing judges and public representatives being forced to retire at 65. But expecting our scumbag millionaire TDs to care about things like fairness is probably a bridge too far.

Good God! - Is that a pack of Tyrannosaurus Rexes I see marauding down Kildare street? Ah no - it's just Jackie Healy Rae, Rory O'Hanlon and Mary O'Rourke on their way to the Dáil bar!

Some interesting links:

• Retirement age in Ireland
• IrishPoliticians.com - oldest in the Dáil
• 30th Dáil - members list
• Irish Supreme Court
• Irish Supreme Court - current membership