Work up to 75!

Maybe we should encourage child labour, boycott any service that provides its employees with a pension plan as part of the remuneration package, and force everyone to work until they die of exhaustion. We could ensure this happens by withdrawing healthcare for anyone who can't pay for it out of their own pocket.

Otherwise ...

The houses built, say in the 30s-70s were pretty much all built by hand, with very little mechanisation - so like most other processes they were much more labour intensive than today.

Virtually every industrial process has undergone the same changes - putting hundreds of thousands people out of work in the process (the 1980s in Ireland were a dreadful time for emigration and unemployment, just as the post crash were). So a great many of the people who now have a pension also spent time on the dole and working abroad, often working for years in the black economy and precarious employment, with resulting huge holes in their pension entitlements.

Be that as it may, the changes mentioned above have freed up great numbers who seem to have all migrated to financial services, IT, cafes and nail bars. Some well-paid with pension entitlements, others not - I wonder how you'd suggest dealing with that anomaly?

Of course there is a privileged minority of workers who spent their whole life in employment and have a full pension as a result - but the real problem is not them, but rather the people who pull the strings. And they will never be short of a few bob.

The state pension is a pittance.

I'm sure many of those who work in financial services don't actually produce anything useful.

Ditto much of what happens in Google, yahoo, twitter, Wix (now that it's in the news!), facebook and the other companies that spy on us online isn't actually productive. Those workers could be much better employed in looking after the infirm elderly.

How do you think pensions work? Do you think the tax you pay is put away in a bank account for you when you retire?

It's just the way it is going. The last few generations have avoided paying to keep services up with the rising population. Now we have working people who can't afford more than one child if they ever want a house. The demographic pyramid shows you that there won't be enough working people to pay for services like pensions (waiting to see what your understanding of pensions is)

Yeah I could set the goal of reshaping the demographic pyramid. Not terribly realistic. My aim is to own a house so I can sell it to pay for end of life care. Much more realistic

That is how the system is working but its a very unfair and out dated system. Why are we paying for the short fall in other peoples pensions (public sector) and then they want us to work till 75? Its very unfair if your a person who starts workings from say anywhere from 16 to 24 and paying our ridiculously high tax rates till your 65 you have well paid enough into the system to cover your pension. Its time that some actuary detailing for the individual and if the person has paid 40+ years of high income tax they should be entitled to head off with the state pension at 65.

I find it funny that the people making these decisions or floating these ideas are the ones who are having their pensions partially paid for by those they want to work for longer. If those suggesting this want it to happen let them turn all Public sector pensions into defined contribution and forgo the part of their pensions that they have not paid for over the years and even the field first.

Are you suggesting that the sectors I mentioned aren't involved in tax avoidance and other dodgy financial "services" on the one hand, and that on the other cyberspying and other dodgy online activities don't exist; or alternatively that these are positives that should be encouraged within our society?

"My aim is to own a house so I can sell it to pay for end of life care."

You can put yourself at the 'mercy of the state'. That's how the Fair Deal scheme is constructed. Elderly are in theory anyway to be looked after more or less equally - if you don't have means OK, if you do then your assets are taken into account and you pay a 'fair' contribution.

What's a no?

Dodgy practices in IT and Finance are well-known, well-documented. And add nothing to our economy and even less to our society - although they may make wads of cash for the businesses they work in.

Do you believe that society wouldn't be better off if those involved in these practices were helping the infirm elderly?

All taxes are pooled together for expenditure like I said PRSI is not pooled into a separate account for paying pensions. Tax is income expenditure is our outgoings unless you can prove otherwise.