Irish Examiner view: Small steps towards a renewal

A penpal initiative in nursing homes has meant that hundreds of letters have been exchanged and new friendships created.

The wretched pandemic has brought many difficulties, some beyond anything we might have anticipated outside of wartime. Economic, social, and personal challenges are all too real, especially if they are needlessly exacerbated by our self-inflicted — and, amazingly, tolerated — shortcomings.

Tens of thousands of individuals, couples, or small business people gallantly trying to work or teach at home are being grievously undermined by broadband shortcomings every day. They are but one drowning cohort cast adrift on stormy seas. Their position may not be as perilous, or as trying and unacceptable, as that of those working in crowded health settings who still await a reassuring vaccine but their frustration and anger, vulnerability too, are justified. Those exposures are equally unsustainable and demand intervention at the highest levels.