Madam, - Fifty years ago next year, Sean Lemass declared 1958 to be the "year of opportunity". Lemass and his contemporaries, aided by some of the most gifted civil servants to grace Irish public administration, such as Dr TK Whitaker, attempted to forge a reality to match their vision of an Ireland that was prosperous, modern, and socially progressive, an Ireland in which living conditions would be improved for all citizens.
In a comparatively short time, they took significant steps towards transforming political, social and economic life.
Half-a-century later, what use have we made of this inheritance of opportunity? At a time when we have seen the ugly face of this thrusting new Ireland exposed again, I was prompted to make a comparison with the Ireland of the early 1960s.
At that time, Ireland had been dragged out of economic torpor, forced to counteract the disease of emigration and the pernicious culture of stagnation. Change was effected and, though modest in hindsight and in comparative terms, reform was attempted in health, education, justice and social welfare.
With our far more bounteous resources, what have we achieved? Cocaine has replaced emigration as the new "curse celebre" of the young. Our hospital system remains gravely inadequate and our penal system retains much the same structure as in the 19th century. Yet our politicians now expect gratitude for having deferred large pay increases, under duress.
1958 sparked a new optimism about what politics could achieve for Irish society. Perhaps 2008 will come to be known as the "year of wasted opportunity". We are all implicated in such squandering.
- Yours, etc,
MARY ROGAN, Rathmines, Dublin 6.