Dr. Orlaigh Quinn:

The homemaker's credit is either retrospective or there is a cost involved. Obviously, some of the changes are happening now, while others will happen in the future. There is an interdepartmental group in place and we are looking at a range of options. Somebody mentioned people working and how the age used to be 70 years. There has been a huge growth in the number of older people working. Between 1998 and 2013, the number of people aged between 60 and 64 years who were working increased from 35% to 45%. All of our research suggests this has an impact on the younger population because countries which have very high youth employment rates also have very high numbers of older workers. I do not think one can say that just because one has older workers, one will knock out younger workers. In a recession one can see some of this, but we are really trying to focus on the future, pension sustainability and how we manage to keep older workers in work. I must also mention that all of our research suggests there are huge health and social impacts if people work for longer. Data from the longitudinal study - the TILDA research - very much support this finding in terms of the impact on people's mental and physical well-being.