Age of presidential candidates

Sir, – The proposal to reduce age discrimination in regard to presidential candidates, while progressive in itself, is something of a red herring. There are much more serious forms of age discrimination that will still remain – for example in the areas of insurance, employment protection, mortgage eligibility, etc. These forms of discrimination would scarcely be tolerated if they were applied on the basis of, say, race, gender, religion, or membership of the travelling community. The debate around the age of presidential candidates is to be welcomed if it helps to shine light on age discrimination. – Yours, etc,

PAUL O’BRIEN,

Dublin 8.