Mary Kenny
There was great news for Ireland last week: the population of this country is due to increase by more than a million people in the next decade or so. The prediction from the ESRI is that by 2030, the population will have grown by 1.1 million.
Population increase – particularly for countries which are under-populated, as Ireland has been since the great Famine – was traditionally seen as a positive development and a vote of confidence in the future. France looks back with pride on the era of Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, when France was the greatest power in Europe, with the greatest population in Europe.
Affliction
The decline of France as the dominant European power is a story of population decline (while Germany’s population grew).
Under-population has been an affliction for Ireland since the 1850s. A century after the Famine, the population was heading for under three million; emigration was described as a nation’s “haemorrhage”; and demographers expressed fears that the Irish would die out in their native land “like the Mayans”.
So, population growth is to be applauded. But was the population boom report greeted with applause? No; it was treated with doom and gloom: described as a “timebomb”: and deplored because it will mean a “ballooning” of people over 65, considered such a “drain” on national resources. Woe, agus ochone!
What a miserabilist attitude!
Consider the positive: more people means more manpower, womanpower and brainpower. More people means there is a wider pool of clever and innovative talent to advance the country – and to bring solutions to social needs such as housing and infrastructures. More older people means more wisdom, experience, and grannies available for childcare.
Don’t diss Ireland’s population increase – celebrate it!
Better the devil you know…
When I was a schoolchild, Irish banks tended to be headed up by a sombre, sober, prudent and upright old Protestant merchant caste, who were inclined to network through the Freemason’s Lodges – so the management base was somewhat narrow. But, looking back, were they rather more ethical towards bank customers than the Flash Harrys and ‘loadsamoney’ casino capitalists who seem to dominate modern banking in a more secular age? Just a thought!
Isn’t redemption open to everyone?
Isn’t it a Christian principle to hate the sin, but embrace the sinner? Or has that idea now been abolished?
Myra Hindley was a murderess who carried out the most heinous crimes in torturing and killing helpless children. And yet Lord Longford [pictured]visited her in prison, and supported her towards repentance, because he believed in this Christian principle.
Crime
Tom Humphries was found guilty of a sexual crime against a young girl of 14. He has been sentenced to prison – not long enough for some commentators – and it is certain that his life has been ruined by what he has done.
Doubtless he deserves the penalty, but I can’t feel entirely comfortable with the avalanche of unforgiving condemnation against the sinner, not just the sin.
A person who has done a bad thing is still a human being who can be redeemed.