DUBLIN – Few enough things in this life improve with age: the enchanting laughter of a significant other (if you’re lucky), fine wine and whiskey (so I’m told), and first-person accounts of past sporting achievements (three-letter man in high school? You bet!).
In Ireland, however, senior citizen status brings a couple of significant perks. For example, starting at the far end of the old age spectrum, when you reach your 100th birthday here, a payment of €2,540 (almost $2,800 USD at current rates), along with a congratulatory letter signed by the President, will arrive in your mailbox. On your 101st birthday and every birthday thereafter, you'll get a commemorative coin and a further letter from the President praising your longevity – and proposing you launch a podcast.
Ireland’s Centenarian Bounty, as it’s called, was begun in 1940 by President Douglas Hyde, who died 11 years shy of being eligible for it himself.
Happily, my own five-score payout and presidential citation are still a few years away. But that hasn’t stopped me from wondering just what I’ll buy with my €2,540, hopefully adjusted for inflation, in 2059. Maybe I’ll look into one of those social media brain implants all the kids will be raving about. Or, more likely, I'll spring for an extra cup of lunchtime Jell-o in Sunshine Gardens, my not-so aptly-named elder care community.
Earlier this year, however, I became eligible for an even better old age entitlement, one that I’ve had my eye on for a while. (No, it’s not the right to drone on about the good old days. That annoying generational tic started in my fifties.)
What gets me out of bed these days is Ireland’s Free Travel Scheme. In a nutshell, the scheme allows everyone aged 66 and over and living permanently in Ireland to travel free of charge on all public transportation and some private bus and ferry services. Plus, if you meet the scheme’s requirements and you are married, in a civil partnership, or cohabiting, your partner can travel free with you as well.
So far, I’ve saved about €75 (almost $80) on local transport services, two or three times with my wife along for the occasion. But once the weather improves and the days get longer and brighter, I plan to venture out of Dublin, riding the rails or hopping on a bus to Galway, Westport, Kilkenny, or Waterford.
Given my family links to Ireland’s “true capital,” my inaugural excursion is going to be a day trip to Cork to have lunch with my cousin Joe – an outing that will include the added pleasure of some dedicated reading time during the combined six-hour round-trip rail journey that only last year set me back €90, or nearly 100 equivalent greenbacks.
Despite my dogged online sleuthing, I can’t find a figure for how much this moveable feast of a social program is likely costing the Irish taxpayer each year in lost revenue. (Perhaps Elon Musk’s budgetary detectives might fare better.)
I am fond of doing some simple ciphering, however. So, if you take that there are nearly 800,000 people aged 66 and older in Ireland and assume a generous average annual “spend” of €500 on free travel each year – accounting for non-paying companions and carers of folks unable to travel alone – then old-timers like me are depriving the Irish public transport authorities of €400 million in potential train and bus fares.
In our defense, though: When you consider that Irish government expenditure in 2025 will total €120 billion, rambling seniors are draining the national treasury of relative pennies as we climb on and off various buses and trains, often without incident.
Plus, rather than remaining at home, we're helping to boost the Irish economy, counting out change and pulling crumpled bills from our wallets in pubs and shops from Dingle to Donegal.
Finally – and perhaps most importantly – free travel has the benefit of taking men and women with declining faculties off the road, thus lowering the number of elderly drivers who might tragically mistake the gas pedal for the brake.
As for who came up with this crazy idea: In 1967 then Finance Minister Charlie Haughey introduced the Free Travel Scheme in his annual Budget Speech to the Dáil – a raucous parliamentary ritual often lasting hours as each government spending program is name-checked and accounted for before a packed gathering of hooting and hollering TDs.
According to a website partial to the oft-embattled eventual Taoiseach, who passed away in 2006, the Free Travel Scheme “was undoubtedly revolutionary in its social impact. Throughout his political career, Charles Haughey displayed a deep and genuine concern for the welfare of older people. He endeavoured to provide the elderly, not only with the basic necessities of life, but, to ensure that they had some comfort and companionship in their later years.”
All I’ll say, as a person of advanced chronology, is thank you, Charlie. You may not have inspired Boston's MBTA travel card that shares your name – that honor belongs to The Kingston Trio – but maybe Irish transport authorities will one day do the right thing and name their old age travel pass after you.
Boston native Steve Coronella has lived in Ireland since 1992. He is the author of “Designing Dev,” a comic novel about an Irish-American lad from Boston who's recruited to run for the Irish presidency. His latest paperback publications are “Entering Medford – And Other Destinations” and "Looking Homeward - Essays & Humor from a Misplaced American."
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