Months before Mr James Gogarty first went to Dublin Castle, a potentially scandalous study of abuse hit the desk of Brian Cowen, Minister for Health.
Had its subject been children, there would have been a national outcry: 12,000 people were estimated to be routinely abused in emotional, physical and sexual ways. There was no special phone line for them to call, no shelter where they could seek refuge, no agency with responsibility for their special needs. They were vulnerable and alone.
The difference was they were old.
Age is something to celebrate. Until you start getting older. Then you must stop unless you are very old indeed. People over 70 will invite you to guess their age with the same glee as a 16-year-old who thinks she looks 20. But in between, the subject is taboo.
Ageing is becoming such a taboo that in practice it is not only bad news, it is increasingly at odds with images of Irishness itself. The country is marketed as Europe's Tir na nOg, a place where everyone is young and beautiful, and can in consequence be loved. If you can't match that image, you won't fit the bill. For some, this may mean no love; for many, it means a lot less respect than they deserve.
Whereas in the past older people were viewed as a resource for upcoming generations, now they risk being perceived as a kind of enemy. Every demographic study screams with alarm at the prospect of how the fast-ageing population we have will threaten that sacred cow, the Irish economy.
A generation gap is opening up, not between teenagers and their parents, like the youth market invented in the 1950s, but between those who are economically active and those who are not. The stage is set for conflict. From healthcare to housing, the message is that the country's fast-ageing population will drain resources that younger people need.
Taken at face value, the projections do look stark. Healthcare costs for long-term care of older people within Ireland will treble within 30 years.
Thus is Ireland's deep-rooted scarcity mentality at risk of turning once again on its own. Which may be why the report by the National Council on Ageing and Older People has comfortably gathered dust, until the council released it publicly this month.
This Tir na nOg is a relief from the oligarchy that governed Ireland for too long. But it caters badly for older people. Changes in family culture mean that older people are no longer assured of a role, whatever their marital status. Constant reassurance that they can make a valuable contribution to society starts to ring hollow when you review the available images.
Most adverts you see feature their peer group as passive recipients of someone else's largesse, as lone males wandering on unimaginably perfect golf courses, or as child-like females prancing about dressed in shiny shell suits in an admirable but oddly-garbed bid to stay healthy.
Supporting better care for the ageing could look like altruism: in fact, it is naked self-interest. The grace notes which remain silent in this debate are potentially more insidious than any obvious discord between those who are older and those who are not.
Greater longevity has resulted in higher rates of serious age-related disease, such as Alzheimer's. But while this generational divide emerges, a wider fear of ageing - or being seen to age - is starting to grip the culture. Its downside is ageism, that prejudice which insists everyone must be young and beautiful, and excludes or marginalises those who are not.
The recent attempt to replace RTE's professional weather forecasters with a group of handsome amateurs is one relatively mild example. The spate of attacks on older people who live alone is serious.
Ageing is becoming medicalised, as if it were in itself a pathological condition, rather than a process. You are no longer as old as you feel, despite the adage, but as old as you look. This can have serious consequences for everyone's health choices, as well as their employment opportunities. Hence the need to take vitamins you probably don't need, to introduce hormones to your body which are already produced naturally, to pay for unnecessary cosmetic surgery just so your jaw-line won't drop all on its own.
The market which thrives on fear of ageing in women is by now well established. Girls are targeted from adolescence in a bid to win their loyalty for beauty products. A new anti-cellulite cream introduced to the Irish market is selling out in various pharmacies. It promises to reduce that dimpled skin which is considered so attractive in babies but so despised in adult females, as the science writer and author Natalie Angier points out.
The claim made is that you rub it on, and the dimples disappear all on their own. A century ago, travelling quacks marketed a "cure" for unwanted pregnancy on exactly the same basis. No one reminds women that the fat cells they lay down as they mature are a way of producing the oestrogen they may later decide to replace through other medical supplements. Men might take note: as they are the next target market, older men may not be permitted to feel quite so attractive in the future.
The paradox of this trend is that it is the generation of Irish people now in their 20s and 30s who are most likely to be discriminated against as they age, unless health strategies and social attitudes change.
Smaller family size will mean fewer adult children to share care of ageing parents, whether by being carers, or by paying the high costs of residential accommodation for the elderly.
The message the culture sends is that people should grow old gracefully. This is double-speak. On the one hand, it implies that they should accept the slowing down, laugh about the crow's feet, the stiffening knee caps, the longer time it takes to be served in a shop where younger people manage to get their spake in first. This may at times be wise.
Growing old gracefully also insists that you should not complain, that you must accept the hand life deals you whatever its justice, and simply be grateful you are still alive. This is not wise. It is the equivalent of telling children they should be seen and not heard. No wonder so many older people are at risk, and afraid to complain in case we think them a burden.
Far better, surely, to grow old disgracefully, to make scenes if you must, the better to raise your voice when it needs to be heard.