Holly Cairns

Finn McRedmond: Life isn't particularly easy for young people in Ireland but the way we measure our wealth extends beyond immediate material factors.

The current spectre of pessimism – that everything is getting worse, that we are condemned to a life less fulfilling than our parents – simply fails to notice the tangible progress of recent years. Maybe we could ascribe that to soaring global literacy rates; or huge steps made in girls’ education; the decline of excruciating and fatal diseases; how we managed to change the tide on AIDS. Nevertheless, looking to the past is all too tempting. It may be immediately expedient to understate this progress – it certainly makes for a fashionable political point – but acknowledging all the ways the world has improved is crucial to keeping us on that path. The swath of émigrés to London or the Antipodes are evidence enough of that fact. The world is not perfect but it is less racist and less homophobic than it has been even in recent decades. Thanks to the democratising force of low-cost airlines we can travel more cheaply than ever before. Access to the world beyond our noses is an advantage we should not take lightly. This remains inconveniently true no matter how unfashionable it may be to suggest in a climate of rampant inflation, a housing crisis and the fallout of a pandemic. But the way we measure our wealth – as individuals and as a group – extends beyond immediate material factors. [in her First Dáil contribution as leader of the Social Democrats](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/03/03/holly-cairns-they-say-rural-ireland-is-so-conservative-its-not-true-and-its-kind-of-insulting/) – said “I’m a member of the first ever generation who will be worse off than my parents”. So, yes, perhaps in this immediate and narrowly-defined sense the young are worse off.