A chara, – I am indebted to your correspondent Aidan Roddy (Letters, May 13th) for reminding me that we are all cut from the same cloth.
The point of my letter was that there is more than time which separates us on our journey. Comparative wealth, employment security, opportunities at a younger age, the availability of public and affordable housing, childcare costs, and the opportunity to be a full-time parent have all changed to the detriment of the younger generation. I’m not saying that older people didn’t have their own challenges on their journey through life; merely that the nature of those challenges has changed for the younger generation of today. If we could provide affordable public housing for those who needed it back in the 1950s, how come we can’t do so now when our economy is over 100 times bigger, as measured by GDP, than it was then?
It is a matter of priorities, and we have chosen, via our political system, to make life very difficult indeed for our younger generation. Forcing them to remain living at home until well into their thirties or relying on the “Bank of Mom and Dad” (Anthony O’Leary, Letters, May 13th) merely infantilises them and does us no credit. It also further disadvantages those whose “Mom and Dad” have no bank. – Is mise,
FRANK SCHNITTGER,
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Blessington, Co Wicklow.