Mr. Ciar?n Nugent:

I will just cover the wages and incomes part and then I will let Dr. McDonnell talk about the demographics. Yes, wages have dropped in real terms and have not kept up with inflation in the past year. The lag is about 2%. I refer to 2023, that is the final quarter of both 2022 and 2023. This is reflected in the deprivation figures. It is about one in eight people now. This statistic increased slightly in 2023, but we would have expected it to have gone down with such strong employment growth, etc. This measure does not count people who might be deprived of independent living, such as young adults, which is a growing issue too. The statistic in this regard is about one in eight people now, whereas it had been one in 12. In absolute terms, then, more than 60% of workers in the Irish economy are struggling with bills, and the number in this situation really jumped in 2022. There is definitely an issue here, then. The same can be said for household incomes. Inflation in this regard was about 24%, while incomes increased by under 2%. There is a lag there. Although the most recent inflation figures are positive, and coming down to some kind of normal level, it is still not certain that wages will increase quicker than inflation this year. This will mean another drop for workers.