Sir, – Writing as someone born within a decade of 1975, and who once fell out of the family car rounding a corner, Frank McNally's observation that it's a "small miracle" any of us survived resonates strongly with me (An Irishman's Diary, April 30th).
To pick up on his point that while life in Ireland is not perfect, it’s actually very good, I’d add that it’s even better than his summary statistics indicate. Given that life expectancy here is 82.6 years, Frank McNally, reasonably enough, says that “the average newborn can now expect 83 years” of life.
Like so much with statistics, the matter is not quite so simple, despite appearances.
That would be their life expectancy if nothing changed from now on.
But advances are expected to continue in science, health, safety, vaccination, hygiene and so on. Thus an Irish baby born now, according to Unicef, is likely to live an average of over 93 years. In another context, heralding a new decade, this has been reported before by The Irish Times (News, January 1st, 2021).
Undoubtedly, this is the best time in human history to be alive. And we are fortunate to be among the happiest, most equal, and longest living of populations, and to have a quality of life among the best globally, by all conventional measures.
To be able to anticipate 93 years of that is a gift indeed, and, for some, it might even be enough to clear a mortgage. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’BRIEN,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.