The latest report from the ESRI regarding salaries of people in their 20s and 30s was very significant when you consider the cost of living in Ireland has increased exponentially in the last 20 years.
While the shortage in newly built houses is one of the main reasons for this current housing crisis, the stagnation in wages has also been a major contributing factor as many people with aspirations to own their own home are now realising this may never happen and they will have to continue renting at exorbitant rates.
Ireland has been a magnet for numerous multinationals who find this country an attractive base as it has a very well-educated workforce yet this same workforce is struggling to survive on two salaries while single people have been labelled as a liability by many financial institutions.
Many of these companies also expect young people to work as unpaid interns, a practise that should have been abolished years ago and is basically a form of exploitation, you are paid if you do an apprenticeship so the same should apply in every other sector.
The Government has understandably been preoccupied with the pandemic for the last 12 months but this gap in salaries and the standard of living has been existence for well over 20 years and has been largely ignored.
If this current disparity in wages and cost of living is not tackled, then more people should be encouraged to work from home in countries where housing is more affordable and an average salary is more than enough to provide a decent standard of living.
Eoin Murphy
Dunmanway
Cork
Taoiseach must take responsibility
Micheál Martin is a decent man. The system has served him very, very well. So when others demand change, he’s hurt and indignant. Banging on about “populism” (also known as the things that animate and concern ordinary people).
But he is too long in the “bubble”. The answers are stale and the “hurt” and “indignant” persona is wearing very, very thin.
An Taoiseach was there at the top table throughout as the housing crisis developed. When you take the pay, and take the applause, and take the pensions, and take the portrait on the wall, well then you should also take some scintilla of responsibility.
Michael Deasy
Carrigart
Co Donegal
Accounting for the housing crisis
There is much heated debate in the Dáil on housing, and in my view the policy of the past decade of local authorities competing with the public for HAP properties instead of building social housing has contributed enormously to the problem.
My question is how the Department of Finance approved the HAP scheme and the long term leasing by local authorities to provide social housing.
It begs the question whether in fact the country is being run by the Department of Finance on accounting principles which focus on the budget only.
Accounting solutions are not economic and social solutions.
Caitriona McClean
Lucan
Co Dublin
Covid disaster is unravelling in India
While Western nations are navigating an exit route from pandemic conditions, tentatively arranging summer plans, a human disaster is unfolding in India.
Coronavirus is spreading from urban centres to rural hinterlands. It is deeply painful to observe a country unable to cope with the onslaught of Covid-19 infections.
The Indian health system is on the verge of collapse, despite the valiant and concerted efforts of medical staff.
Hospitals and healthcare services are overwhelmed. Oxygen and vaccine supplies are dwindling rapidly. People are dying from other maladies as staff have been redirected to assist patients infected with Covid-19.
Access to public healthcare has been an impossibility for over 60% of the Indian population dependent on the overstretched public healthcare system.
Among the calamitous chaos, children across India have been forgotten and their needs neglected as parents and caregivers are infected with the virus. Many children have become orphans due to the pernicious spread of the disease.
Who is tasked with safeguarding and protecting these youths while their quarantined primary guardians battle Covid-19 in isolation?
This poses a myriad of multidimensional obstacles for the children’s mental, physical and emotional health. This issue predominantly impacts marginalised and deprived children which acts as an unsettling illustration of modern inequity.
NGOs can only service a portion of the vulnerable youths, providing immediate food supplies and shelter.
If developed nations do not provide immediate and comprehensive supports to assist India we are at risk of importing a deadlier variant of the disease which will extend our battle with Covid-19.
Sarah Conroy
New Ross
Co Wexford
Put a specific date on airport opening
Dublin Airport is at present a graveyard of airplanes, lined up in rows waiting for the day when they can be active again.
In one sentence the Government is saying a green light for travel to European countries will happen In July and then the next sentence It probably will not return fully until next year.
Thousands of jobs have been lost in this industry from the airline pilots, stewards, airport retail, restaurants, traffic controllers, bus drivers, etc., therefore the Government needs to put a specific date on the opening as it will take time for all these jobs to be active again, to make sure all flights resume safely.
Susan Burke
Cahir
Tipperary
Children remain very vulnerable
We welcome the announcement by The Department of Justice that Tusla and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth have been appointed as competent authorities for the identification of victims of human trafficking.
As recent National and International Reports continue to highlight, children remain vulnerable to trafficking both within Ireland and from other countries into Ireland.
These reports clearly articulate the need for greater enhancements in the identification of child victims of trafficking in this country.
We look forward to continuing to respond to this need with education and awareness-raising programmes for front-line professionals working with vulnerable children and those most likely to come into contact with an at-risk child.
In addition, we welcome collaboration with new partners as efforts are enhanced in response to the challenge of child trafficking in Ireland.
Ann Mara and JP O’ Sullivan,
MECPATHS
Clondalkin
Dublin 22
Time to defend Palestinian rights
Is there any hope that for once we could hear a US President or an Irish Foreign Affairs Minister acknowledge that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, a right we know exists for the Israeli state because we hear it all the time?
Is there any hope that when commentators are referring to Israel they will call it as it is - a racist apartheid State that perpetuates inhumane permanent violence on the Palestinian people whose lands they occupy and besiege?
Jim Roche
PRO Irish Anti-War Movement
PO Box 9260, Dublin 1
Vast arsenal or vaccinations?
Can anyone please explain how Hamas, a regime that can’t afford vaccinations for its people, can still afford a vast arsenal of missiles that can travel nearly 100kms?
Ciarán Ó Raghallaigh
College Street
Cavan
Spreading the winnings around
Plans to reopen pubs and calls to support the hospitality sector remind me of an incident in a pub in 2003.
I was having coffee in a pub one afternoon when I met a very merry man celebrating a win on the horses.
He told me he was “supporting employment in the hospitality sector and redistributing wealth”.
John Williams
Clonmel
A beef with meaty sport descriptions
Declan Bogue, in his Irish Examiner, May 9, report of the Antrim-Clare match, wrote: “Clarke struck it across the body and goalkeeper Eibhear Quilligan got the meat of his stick behind it, but still it spun into the net” Only the league? Not for Antrim hurlers after late rally stuns Clare.
I am 87, grew up in Munster hurling country and played the game from the age of five until my mid- thirties. However, I never knew that meat formed part of the camán.
Would Declan Bogue please enlighten readers at to which part?
Philip Power
Fairfield Road
Dublin 9
