Pensions, eco-funeral and euthanasia were some of the issues that came up at a forum on life's end, writes BRIAN KAVANAGH
A FUNERAL director can be an excellent, if rather unlikely, barometer for change. Though they may deal exclusively with death and the solemn ritual which surrounds it, paradoxically undertakers are also among the first to be exposed to the tastes and attitudes of the modern zeitgeist.
“There has been very much a call for eco-friendly funerals, complete with wicker and willow coffins,” said Gus Nichols of the Irish Association of Funeral Directors.
“I suppose the idea of a green footprint of a funeral is a very interesting question, because funerals are not very green generally. In terms of a cemetery, putting something in the ground and erecting a stone, well, how green is that?
“The willow used for coffins is probably grown in Thailand and flown over here as well,” said Nichols.
Soon to be president of FIAT-IFTA, the world organisation of funeral directors, Nichols was one of seven experts taking questions from the public on the economic and social cost of dying in Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin last Thursday.
Organised by the Forum on End of Life in Ireland and chaired by RTÉ sports broadcaster Michéal Ó Muircheartaigh, the panel opened with the contention that while the living may spend a great deal of their time preoccupied with the cost of existing, seldom do they give enough attention to the cost of dying.
The machinations of death, the panel held, have evolved as much as the nature of life itself.
While the cost of an average funeral may have risen to €5,000, as Gus Nichols told the gathered audience, a plot in Glasnevin cemetery can cost as little as €1,500, said George McCullough, chief executive of the Dublin Cemeteries Committee.
The public also got a chance to air their grievances, and their qualms, about how modern Ireland addresses the challenges of dying, death and bereavement.
The process of embalming, the benefits of making a will, the cost of an average funeral and the cost of a grave plot were all queried but the issue of hospice care and any connection with assisted dying seemed to weigh on people’s minds.
“Let me make it very clear, the Irish Hospice Foundation is exactly as it is named, it is an organisation which promotes palliative care and hospice care,” said Paul Murray, co-ordinator of the Forum on End of Life in Ireland.
“Euthanasia is totally illegal; we would have absolutely nothing whatever to do with it. There is no debate about it.
“That is not to say that we are not listening, we listen to everybody, but as an organisation we have absolutely nothing to do with it, you can be assured, and we never will,” he said.
Economic tumult may be affecting our everyday lives, but the process of dying is also coloured by this financial uncertainty, Eamon Donnelly, retirement consultant with the Retirement Planning Council of Ireland, said.
“People are living longer, but the insane thing is we are still retiring at the same age as people did well over a 100 years ago, so the cost of living in retirement now means preparing for the cost of living for maybe 20 or 30 years,” he said.
“We have a situation now where people are drawing a pension for 31 or 32 years, who actually only worked for 30 years. It is a new factor, we need to have new ways of looking at it, and partly it will involve working longer.
“The cost of dying is something that we all will face at some stage, but the good news is that maybe some of your relations will pick up the tab,” he added.
Even withstanding the cost of being a pensioner, preparation for retirement can place people under considerable financial strain, said Philip Smith, a specialist in pensions law and partner in Arthur Cox.
“It is important to remember when you look at the cost of a pension, not only are people living longer and they are expected to live longer still, but the rate of increase in life expectancy is going up, which is not very good news for your pension, because you have to make it stretch much, much further,” said Smith.
“If you have a flat-rate pension where, for example, you get a fixed amount a year, and you are going to live for a long time, the purchasing power of that pension erodes every year because inflation goes up but your pension does not.
“Unfortunately, there are no easy answers, we are just going to have to save more and start now,” he added.
An initiative of the Irish Hospice Foundation, the Forum on End of Life in Ireland was established to assess the opinion of the Irish public on the main issues at the end of life.
After a year-long process of consultation, the forum expects to draft a final report in April 2010.
A national coalition will then be established to advance the vision and an action plan which will emerge from the forum’s work.
“Our brief is a wider brief than just discussing hospice care; we are finding there are a huge number of issues coming to the fore that we never thought of,” said Paul Murray.
“We are going to hold workshops and around the country we are going to continue to have a whole load of public meetings, the first of which will be in Dublin, then we will go down to Limerick and Galway,” he said.
The Forum on End of Life will hold regional meetings at the Radisson Blu Hotel and Spa in Galway on Tuesday, June 30th; the Clarion Hotel in Limerick on Wednesday, July 1st; and the Gresham Metropole Hotel in Cork on Thursday, July 2nd.
Each meeting starts at 6.30pm and those who wish to make suggestions on the medical, ethical, social and financial challenges facing end-of-life care are encouraged to attend.