Sir, – I doubt that Dama Cunningham (April 1st) meant to trivialise the summer time/winter time debate with reference to children who are driven to schools in SUVs using headlights.
Here in Greystones, Co Wicklow, many children walk to school. And even more wait outside school gates for the school to open. What will that be like for the children if Ireland drops daylight saving time?
Mornings will be darker, much darker. It will be pitch-black at 9am during mid-winter.
Children will no longer be able to walk to school and school-gate drop-offs will be dangerous.
Will schools need additional funding to cover extra lighting and heating costs?
Every school in Ireland should have the proposed time changes on its next board of management agenda. Shops, workers, businesses, outdoor workers and doctors should also be considering what full darkness will mean at the start of the working day. – Yours, etc,
KATHLEEN
KELLEHER,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Thousands of children in working-class and other areas whose parents or parent have no motorised transport must make their way to school in the dark depths of winter on foot.
Isn’t it time we considered the social implications of doing away with daylight saving time rather than focusing purely on the business and financial benefits?– Yours, etc,
DAVID
MURPHY,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Now that we are recovering from the trauma of getting up an hour earlier (so traumatic that nobody mentions it after two days), we are being told that the twice-yearly clock change is to end in 2021.
Whether we will have the extra hour of brightness in the morning or evening has yet to be decided, but either way a lot of people are going to be very unhappy with the decision.
So why not strike yet another EU compromise and split the difference, and for the last time put the clocks back half an hour in October 2020?
More people will be less upset. – Yours, etc,
NORMAN
DAVIES,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.