A chara, – I heartily agree with Arthur Beesley's comments on the ill-conceived notion of reducing the age for presidential candidates to 21 ("Zayn Malik's move points us in one direction on presidential age referendum", Opinion & Analysis, March 27th).
The position of president brings with it an enormous amount of prominence and opportunities to “network” and become well known on the international stage. These are “unearned” in the sense that they do not arise due to any personal brilliance on the part of the president but rather because of the office he or she holds. It would obviously be undesirable and unjust for the president to take advantage of this to promote pet personal or business projects or to use the presidency to build up a CV. This would be much more likely if the candidate is young rather than approaching retirement age. Indeed, on reflection, 35 is far too young! – Is mise,
FIONA MOCKLER,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.