Pensions Age to ..... 72 !?

I don't think you understand public debt or leprechaun economics works. Comparing anything to GDP in this country is going to give extremely misleading results. To use another simple metric - we have more public debt per capita than any other EU country. Every single man, woman and child owes €50,000. Given most of the population don't pay income tax, it works out at well over €100,000 per taxpayer. But given that the majority of income tax is paid by those earning over 50K, we are talking about every major income tax payer owing several hundred grand each.

It is all down to how we service this debt. Are you happy to slash 10 Billion from spending (what kind of public sector layoffs or paycuts would we be talking?)? Or raise 10 Billion in additional income tax (gonna have to lower the tax bands to make sure even minimum wage earners pay the 20%, while the marginal rate would kick in only a little above that, with probably a third band (50%) kicking on on those earning over 50K). Either one would cause massive social upheaval, destroy the economy and likely trigger another property crash (bringing all that private debt into doubt). Except, this time, we can't borrow to bail ourselves out again. Because, when interest rates rise - and they will - we will be paying 10-20 billion in interest alone - every single year. Hell, despite the past number of years being relatively zero or even negative interest, we are still paying more in interest (4 billion) than we do on justice today.

Oh, and one final thing - we are still borrowing. Not for capital investment or anything, just keeping the country afloat. So we already need to slash and burn spending just to stop borrowing.

This is akin to someone clocking up a credit card bill several times their annual salary. And they are still continuing to spend more than they earn.

It’s neither racist or narrow minded to control your borders, population and wellbeing of your taxpaying citizens as your priority.

People usually put up the same grainy screenshot of the bill that removed the old council by council water rates in the 1990s and replaced it by LGF funding.

Outdated, revoked legislation being rabbited by those that don't understand it to begin with.

People are going to have to get used to - and prepare for - moving to lower responsibility/lower pressure jobs toward the end of their careers. Everything has been structured with the idea of you retiring from the top, and final salary pensions in the public sector (now gone for new entrants) were a clear part of this.

When pensions came in, the age was 70 and the average health of someone at 70 was far, far worse than the health of someone at that age now. But you didn't continue doing the same job all the way to the end.

I already know of plenty of cases already of people who were perfectly capable of doing their current job when promoted to it; but are absolutely lost / failing in it by their late 50s due to early decline.

Problem is there's plenty of people with mortgages going at the full repayment rate till 65/66 already, and without significant inflation those payments will become unserviceable if they drop to lower paid employment towards the end.

It’s going to get like the US so. Where you go into a supermarket and see 70 plus year olds stacking shelves and working the checkouts... why ? because they have to.

their quality of life being abused having paid in all their lives, just so we and they can support the new arrivals? Fûck that.

Well done,her, but that money is simply at rest for now and will be spent in future so it will be hit by VAT at some point so some of it will go back to the coffers in time. Pensions are not a one-way street. I always find it incredible that you can contribute a great many taxes to the State for 40 years and more yet when you want 13 grand a year back and usually live for about 20 years after retirement, the state reacts as if you are stealing from their pockets.

By putting duty or a percentage when you want to draw it. Or by reducing the untaxed amount you can take out. These are the little things you have to pay attention to when the Minister is reading out the Budget and after droning on for a few hours, slips it in that "pension duty has gone up from 0.5% to 0.75%". No-one notices until they read the small print and realise that the Minister has just stung the pension holder for a few hundred a year more. His pension is safe and secure but yours has just been "raided" and there's nothing you can do about it.

It’s turning into an even more dangerous, unfair, unhealthy, divisive, unsafe, malevolent kip of a place to live...

where rewards and handouts are free and plentiful for those not or whom haven’t contributed... cash, property, healthcare etc... but those who try get off their holes, sacrifice to make something of themselves are denied help, support and opportunities at every fûcking turn, this pension idea should be proof 100%...yet are expected to fund that help for others out of their own sweat and hard work... this country is a dump.

Just wait for the climate emergency taxes to hit. Their recently announced plan of action is without exageration, terrifying. It includes stuff like 1.5 Gw of solar, which simply is not economically viable in such a cloudy country, where only 14% of the hours in a year of actual sunshine. The only way that solar will be built is with substantial subsidies. There have been several chancers already lobbying the government for subsidies so they could go ahead and build their money printing machines driven off the taxpayers purse, while they retire to the Cayman islands, like a large number of the Scottish and UK wind farm owners. Currently 10% of gov't revenue comes from taxes and charges on ICE. They have been offering subsidies - pension money - to get people to buy EV's. Every EV not only costs the gov't, it elimates part of the 10% money generator. Then ther's the subsidy to install a charging point, toll exemptions, negligable registration fees. Im semi suprised it's only 72.

Then you have the push to retrofit and upgrade buildings and a massive big stick will be required to disuade people from cheap kerrosene and get them to put in very expensive heat pumps - €25,000? - no bother, lucky I don't already have a mortgage to pay, don't need to buy an expensive EV due to 'incentives', and have several times that amount just lying around not already paying carbon taxes, so even though the break even is several decades away (if it doesn't need repairs) sign me up. /s

The whole response to the 'climate emergency' will be so expensive that the pension will probably have to be eliminated entirely - of course you don't actually, being a bunch of cute hoors, you just raise the age to 84.

I hope that you are right.....do you have any areas in mind?? Now while its not going to happen overnight, we are in the dying days of vehicle's needing drivers. All new EVS are automatic transmissions, and HGV have been heading for automatic transmission for a long time now. This is all leading to driverless transportation. All computer controlled, if you think that's a crazy idea, just think how many people sit into their cars each day and switch on their SatNavs....thousands of them, and they are all working at the same time. So its not such a big step to have them actually drive the car to its destination. When they can fly drones many thousands of miles away from their base, and control them, putting the same technology into vehicles is the logical next move. Just think how many jobs will that eliminate? And that's just one area. Even in the supermarkets now, its hard to find one that does not have several self-service checkouts in operation. Lots of jobs going to be lost, I think anyway.

Thats the way anyone starting out now should plan, base it on the fact that by the time you will retire, there will only be the most basic of pensions available. ( if at all !! )

Reduced how?