Sir, – I enjoyed the Rite & Reason piece by Carmel Heaney ("'Sageing' cohort among us can savour the satisfaction of growing old", December 1st) on "sage-ing", valuing old age, and moving away from outdated stereotypes.
Then I made two clicks forward and was surprised to see that the top news story in Business + Your Money was "Ageing population likely to cost Irish exchequer an extra ¤850 million a year" (December 1st).
The article covered the latest budgetary analysis by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.
Surely at this stage we know our demographics, and the rising cost of supporting our ageing population is not headline news.
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It is Ireland’s fiscal commitment to older people, in the same way that we commit to spending on youth, education, housing, business supports, and so on.
The budgetary analysis had pointed to financial uncertainties related to Covid, climate change, Brexit, and diminishing tax revenues. And there were concerns regarding some areas of long-term spending.
Yet none of these were captured in the headline.
We clearly need more articles like Carmel Heaney’s that raise awareness of ageism in our society, and in the media. – Yours, etc,
DAVID
O’BEIRNE,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.