‘Have hope in our future progress’

Sir, – Congratulations to Mark Henry for his very positive article in which he says it is “right” to have “hope” for the future (“Have hope in our future progress”, Opinion & Analysis, September 12th). In his article, he challenges the consistent “negativity bias” of the Irish. He backs up his case by quoting a United Nations report which states that Ireland has the eighth-highest quality of life on the planet. One of the most amazing figures he quotes from the report is that our “consistent poverty” declined to 4 per cent during the pandemic. I do not know if it is in the UN report but we also have one of the lowest death rates from the pandemic in the EU.

But other amazing figures Mark Henry quotes from the UN report is that our number of hospital treatments has doubled in 20 years, income inequality is decreasing and our life expectancy is six years longer than that of the Americans.

We do not see or hear those facts that might cheer us up when we plug in to our mass communication networks.

Instead we get what Mark Henry describes as “social media doomscrolling” that sends us down a “dark rabbit hole”.