Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 December 2021

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Photo of John LahartJohn Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if it is appropriate to bring in Mr. Giustiniani on the ageing profile. He mentioned that this is a vulnerability in the Irish economy. One of the things that we learned from Covid was that Italy had the second oldest population in the EU. There should not be a need for Ireland to reinvent the wheel here. Other countries will have gone through this period in the cycle of economies, where there is a larger proportion of older people to younger people at a particular stage. How do different states handle this financial burden? How did they cope with and prepare for it? Otherwise I can see the possibility of the emergence of intergenerational conflict for that and many other reasons allied to that. How do we avoid that? How do we start that debate? How do other countries deal with the increasing burden of older people having to be paid for by a potentially fewer younger people over time?

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.