Retirement villages — a no-brainer we haven't got our heads around
Pat O’Mahony is convinced that retirement villages will come to Ireland in a similar manner in which they are part of the social infrastructure abroad. File picture: iStock
Pat O’Mahony was in Melbourne, visiting his daughter after she gave birth to twins. In the week the two girls were born, a report on radio announced that a woman born in that particular week should have a life expectancy of 105 years. The news gave him pause for reflection about the old country.
If today’s babies are going to put down a century, how are their latter years going to be lived?
He pulled together a few ideas, wrapped them into a chain of thought, and threw it into luggage for the journey back home. He was going to write a book about what he considered a no-brainer.
“I had lived in Australia many years ago and saw how they treated their elderly there,” he says. “They have retirement villages. A simple concept that is a huge success. I was thinking that I’m getting older and others around me are getting older and I thought why don’t we do something like that in our own country. So I sat down and wrote a book and self-published it.”
The concept is a no-brainer and it’s nothing new in most developed countries, yet for some reason it remains an alien concept in public life in this country. In Australia, 13% of those over 65 live in retirement villages. A similar cohort do so in New Zealand and in the USA it’s 17%.
These villages allow for independent and secure living for a growing number of elderly, and not so elderly people. They consist of a settlement of homes, usually within a wider community and with all the attendant services required, including shops, pubs, restaurants, common areas, and medical services.
The average size of a village in Australia is 110 homes, but some are as big as a small Irish town. In the bigger ones, you might have a swimming pool and gyms. It all adds up to independent living in a secure environment with as little or as much socialisation or engagement with others as one wants.
“When I talk to some people about this they think I’m talking about nursing homes,” he says.
In Australia, the concept is governed by statute introduced in the 1990s. That was updated in recent years following examples of sharp practice by some of the parties to the arrangement, but on the whole, these villages are now seen as an integral option for those entering, not the twilight years as it might once have been characterized, but “the third age”, where life slows down but continues with the promise of plenty of living still to get through.
In his book, , O’Mahony sets out some interesting research from Down Under.
A survey of the national Property Council in 2016 came up with some statistics about villages it runs:
- 63% of residents are female.
- 68% of residences are occupied by a single resident.
- The average age of residents is 81, with 76% being over 75.
- The average age of residents entering the village is currently 74.
- The average time residents live in a village is 8-9 years.
O’Mahony also has research from UCC about the kind of demographics in this country that make it ripe for serious change. Around 30% of people over 65 live alone while 60% of those over 80 do so.
“I don’t understand why the State doesn’t get involved. You’re talking about improving quality of life for people at that stage in many different ways,” he says. “Now, every county development plan has references about the need to do something for older living but it’s a kind of wishlist and they make statements like they will encourage people to, as they call it, downsize.
"It’s not a matter of moving from a big to a small house but moving to a house that is appropriate and at the centre of things, designed to accommodate needs and extend independent living immeasurably."
That is in the driving seat of his passion. The concept of retirement villages is all about quality of life at a stage of the game when proactive measures require to be put in place to ensure that the enjoyment of life does not diminish any more than necessary in deference to the grind of time.
He has, by his own account, lived a full life himself. A native of Inniscara, Co Cork, he was schooled locally and completed a degree in agricultural science in UCC. “Like a lot of my generation, I considered becoming a priest but then the opportunity to become an agricultural advisor came along and I saw it really as just administering in a different way,” he says.
An inquiry from the local VEC led him down a different path and he went on to spend a working life in education. “I really enjoyed teaching, I don’t know why anybody would whinge about it as a career. I went in to meet my friends every day for six or seven hours, I couldn’t speak highly enough of it.”
He and his wife Mary emigrated to Australia where he was employed at various stages in a school in New South Wales and then went on to work for the state education board. The pull of home saw the couple return with their young family in the early nineties and settle in Newbridge where he was principal of the local second-level college.
Now retired, O'Mahony can look back not just on what was obviously a fulfilling career, but the kind of home from which he was sprung and how the supports he enjoyed are not there for the great majority these days.
“When I was young I was brought up in a multi-generational home,” he says. “That day is gone, very often sons and daughters are not living near their aging parents. I know people who spend many of their weekends going off down to Mayo or Cork or Kerry to check in on parents.
“We now make provision for childcare but what about the other side of the coin. We need as much attention paid to the last-time buyer as to the first-time buyer.”
O'Mahony sent his book to every TD and councillor in the country. Those who got in touch were all in favour. There is no drawback to a plan designed to ensure that a first-world country can provide the tools for later-life living of a high standard.
However, as with other issues, enthusiasm from politicians is not a problem. Action is and therein lies the makings of the roadblocks of which there appears to be no political will to dismantle.
“Why is there not specific zoning for retirement homes,” he says. “Look at all the areas in towns and villages that are no longer lived in and unlikely to be put to former uses.” He sets out in the book the kind of basic actions required of government.
These include:
- “Legislation supported by fit-for-purpose regulations to promote the interests of all involved in the provision of living accommodation for older people.”
- “Most particularly there is a need to protect the interest of those who relinquish their family homes and move into purpose-built retirement complexes. There must be an absolute assurance that these people, at a critical and vulnerable point in their lives, do not lose financially as a result.”
- “A national code of conduct should be put in place for retirement village residents. This code should be underpinned by statute and should include clear procedures for resolving conflicts and for compassionately enforcing the outcomes of such procedures.”
- “Local authorities need to incorporate planning for ageing at all levels of the planning process.”
He points out that specific provision is made in planning for the provision of social housing in large developments.
“We need to do something similar in respect of housing for the elderly. But rather than setting individual dwellings or sites aside, we need to set blocks of land aside so complexes with a mix of private and communal residents homes may be developed.”
O’Mahony is convinced that retirement villages will come to Ireland in a similar manner in which they are part of the social infrastructure abroad. That is assured, but the big issue is how long those who might avail of such facilities will have to wait.
He cites the phrase “creeping incrementation”, one he heard from a public servant in Australia. It sums up the attitude of the permanent government in most developed countries. If change must come, this ethic appears to say, then it can only come slowly and at a pace that does not in any way disrupt the status quo.
Time is the enemy of such an approach and time is one of the most precious commodities for those at the later stages of life.
“We have to make a leap forward and we just have to understand that,” he says. “We tend to think of housing in terms of housing in how things always were. But we have social change and we need to meet the challenge. We need to provide the proper quality of life for our elderly and we need to get moving."
- Pat O’Mahony is this week’s guest on
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