Introduction

Demographic ageing is identified as a global challenge with significant social policy implications across local, national and international contexts. The 2008 economic crisis and related austerity policies further compounds and complicates this challenge, whether we are considering a single national setting, the European Union (EU) or a broader international environment. However, the degree to which austerity impacts on social policy issues for older people, and frames approaches to the development of related policy, at these different scalar levels has been under-researched.

As in many other advanced industrial nations, Ireland's population is ageing. The proportion of the Irish population over the age of 65 years is projected to more than double over the next 30 years (Central Statistics Office, 2013a). As is the case in many other nations, these ageing population structures have raised concerns in Ireland about the ability of its social policy and its various social systems to cope with such a demographic shift. In the wider European context, and in the face of accelerated ageing patterns, questions around the readiness of societies, the capacity of pension and social transfer schemes, the adequacy of health and social care systems, and the sustainability of communities are certainly pervasive within spheres of policy and governance (eg European Commission, 2010). Such questions existed before the global economic recession of 2008 and the subsequent introduction of austerity-driven policy; they also reflect globalised processes of economic and social change, and shifting patterns in markets, families, labour mobility, communities and individualisation in social security infrastructure. While the legitimacy of some of these concerns may be more questionable than others, a distinct and enveloping burden discourse, where an increasing older population represents a financially and socially crippling challenge, appears to have taken hold of much of the political rhetoric on ageing. This is true for a range of different country settings that possess different welfare regimes and different political ideologies (Estes et al, 2003; Powell, 2010; Coole, 2012; Phillipson, 2013). This is also to the neglect of the diversity of individuals, local political-economy contexts (Phillipson, 2007) and the value-based forces that shape social policy within those contexts.

In many ways, the economic recession has served to sharpen the focus of policymakers and governments on the implications of demographic ageing for under-resourced and struggling public fiscal systems.