Insult to blame ‘empty nesters’ for housing crisis

The ESRI has now suggested that ‘empty nesters’ – i.e. couples whose children have left home – should consider downsizing their home and move somewhere else to alleviate the now-chronic housing shortage created by the total mess this country has been subjected to over the last eight to 10 years.

How dare they ask this of people who have reared and educated their family? As we all know, many young people have upped sticks and left this country due to the economic downturn.

The ‘grey army’, ‘empty nesters’ or whatever insulting term is now used to describe elderly people should not be frightened or bullied into leaving their homes to satisfy, or indeed solve this problem cause by those who brought this country to its knees.

Let’s hope that whoever governs this country for the next five years will do so with respect for the elderly and stop putting them in the firing line every time there is a problem. Hospital beds, nursing homes, insulting pension increases of €3, cuts in household allowances to name but a few.

Grace Bell,

Dundrum, Dublin 16.

Why the secrecy?

This month marks the anniversary of two important Irish aviation incidents, the truth of which has been denied to our citizens.

The first was an unexplained mid-air destruction on March 23, 1951, of a US Air Force Globemaster off our west coast, which led to Ireland’s largest ever search-and-rescue operation.

Documentation detailing this event has never been made public and is excluded under Freedom of Information rules.

The second incident still constitutes Ireland’s worst ever air disaster when on March 24, 1968, the St Phelim, a Viscount aircraft, took off from Cork en route to London. It never made it and the wreckage was found int he sea off Tuskar Rock, Co. Wexford. All 61 souls on board were lost.

The Aer Lingus accident report was never made public and no fewer than three government probes, between 1970 and 2002, could draw any firm conclusions as to the cause of the accident.

Our research has shown that the entire incident involved something much more unusual than the stray UK missile theory.

With the formation of a new government, dare we hope that a light will finally be shone on the truth of these incidents?

Carl Nally and Dermot Butler, Authors States Of Denial: The Tuskar

Rock Incident And Other Mysteries.