A chara, - Your correspondent Sean Mac Carthaigh wonders (Business This Week, March 19th) if in the next century health care will become a bottomless money pit and if conflict between the generations will escalate as younger people increasingly resent the effects on society of large numbers of older people.
The increased life expectancy which we all now hope to enjoy is probably the greatest achievement of this century. Yet, when commentators refer to this at all, it is usually in the most negative - not to say, pejorative - terms. What seems to be forgotten is that the people who are commentating now are the older people of tomorrow.
It would be refreshing to hear some new thinking on this subject - thinking that doesn't congratulate Ireland for being "in better shape than the rest of the European Union" for having a smaller population of people over 65, but which seeks to build on the demographic miracle that has taken place. We badly need a new approach so as to capitalise on the resource to society that increased numbers of older people represent.
Older people are not different from others - we just have more experience. Please, in the interests of preventing the very intergenerational conflict that Mr Mac Carthaigh fears, could we hear a little bit less about "dependency" ratios and a little bit more about the fact that, for the most part, we are active contributors to society? - Is mise,
Mamo McDonald, Cathaoirleach, Age and Opportunity, Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9.