Retire at 70? Not a chance! It should be more like 60...

IF evidence is needed to indicate how little the Minister for Finance, his Government and their plethora of highly paid advisers understand our current situation, it surely is legislation to move retirement age from 65 to 70.

If there was any real understanding of the technological era we have entered, retirement age would go the other way: to under 60 and lower with immediate pension as technology progressively reduces need for human input into producing all goods and services needed and desired by the human race.

Despite what politicians and economists say and write, automation is in the process of replacing tens if not hundreds of millions of jobs throughout the world. We make a huge mistake by ignoring probably the greatest economic change ever experienced.

Increasing retirement age from 65 to 70 is about as wrong a policy towards meeting the oncoming challenge as it is possible for any Government to devise.

Learning to live with and enjoy earlier retirement in a wonderful new technological era of good health and plenty is something everybody should come to grips with. PADRAIC NEARY, Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo.

The dullest job ever

I HAVE read Bel Mooney’s column (Irish Daily Mail, yesterday) headlined ‘My wife has left me after 37 years for a cult’. The husband states that the wife never worked since the eldest was born. The problem stems from housework because working at constant fulltime house chores is soul-destroying for intelligent women.

The mundane, boring work of housework does not require a brain and therefore you work like a robot and it means that you spend the day ruminating and worrying. I was a full-time housewife and carer for my mother for very many years. It was the isolation and the mundane chores that got to me. I nearly had a mental breakdown. I was accident-prone as well and every day I got burned or scalded or had some other kind of accident.

I ran away to Trinity at the age of 46 to do a degree in order to escape the dreaded housework which I detest with a passion. I still have to do a bit of housework and still detest it. The hardest exam in Trinity is so simple when compared to the dreaded housework. MAUREEN LOWNDES, via email.

Bunch of dopes

THE news that the Russians doped their athletes is not surprising although the fact that the country has been banned from the Winter Olympics is.

The banning of Russia from the Summer Olympics would be extraordinary as this is the real event. The Olympics are realistically seen as the summer events: running, jumping and swimming, although the image is clouded by inclusion of events such as BMX bike riding. Allowing ‘clean’ competitors to compete is a complex issue as they surely must have been aware of the doping programme and silence really is support and allows the wrongdoing to continue.

The puzzling thing about doping and cheating in general is: why? People and countries cannot feel any pride in a tarnished medal.

Let’s remember the emphasis on sport should be participation and enjoyment. DENNIS FITZGERALD,

Melbourne, Australia.

Hot air brigade

THE Mail’s headline ‘The End of Turf Fires’ yesterday might as well have said ‘The End’. According to the Climate Change Advisory Council, putting out our fire is the answer to ‘tackle our increasing green-house gas emissions’.

Enough! Every day we’re drowning in utter nonsense. Is there a Stop The Nonsense Council? It might cut down on our anger emissions.

PHYL KENNEDY, Galway city.