Sir, - I have grave misgivings about the report (February 8th) "Ryanair told to pay £8,000 over ageist ad". This is political correctness gone mad. We may or may not agree with Ryanair's policy, in this case to hire a younger person, but whose business is it who Ryanair chooses to employ, least of all busy-body bureaucrats meddling in something they know absolutely nothing about - owning and running a business.
Presumably Ryanair hires people it regards as the best candidates for the job. If people are not happy with Ryanair's employment policies then this may well manifest itself in ticket sales, and may persuade Ryanair to change its employment policies.
This is bureaucratic abuse of the worst kind and it is extremely worrying that this sort of "nanny state" interference into people's lives is sadly on the increase. For every large well-known organisation (such as Ryanair) that is prosecuted by the bureaucrats, there must be hundreds of small businesses, and individuals being persecuted by Government agencies such as the Equality Authority, for doing nothing other than attempting to conduct their businesses as they see fit and to the best of their abilities.
What next? It would take only a stroke of a bureaucrat's pen to change the 1998 Employment Equality Act to encompass all of us. For example, one day I may find myself in breach of the Act for choosing to date attractive young women only, thus discriminating against the less attractive, more mature ones.
Invasive parastic behaviour by governments can only be to the severe detriment of the economy and society as a whole. Besides, at the end of the day regardless of how Ryanair is forced to advertise its job vacancies, if it wants to hire only young people, it will hire only young people. Yours, etc.,
S. A. Chapman, Pembroke Street, Tralee, Co Kerry.