WE are reminded almost daily that life is a precious experience, something that we cannot equate to price in the economic sense.

It doesn't mean that money can't help at times, when we look at certain medical treatments and their availability.

But life is about that which is natural and normal. The horrendous experience of the young woman, Elisabeth Fritzl, kept captive by her father in the cellar of the family home in Austria, dispels normality and humanity, yet for 24 years that was life.

Bernie Walsh, Coxhoe, Co Durham.