Sir, – Given that every autumn we adjust our clocks to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) about eight weeks prior to the December 21st solstice, why aren’t we switching back to Irish Summer Time approximately eight weeks after it? That would be around today, Valentine’s Day, which always enjoys the same amount of daylight as October 27th (roughly 10 hours). As it stands we’re about to spend five weeks wasting perfectly good natural light at 7am when most people are still in bed, only to sit down to our dinners after 6pm in kitchens flooded with artificial light.
Someone needs to fix this. It’s hard to overstate the public safety and mental health benefits of ditching GMT in February – not to mention the slight reduction in energy bills for countless households and businesses. – Yours, etc,
RONAN SCANLAN,
Leopardstown,
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Dublin 18.