{"id":13735,"date":"2025-09-11T06:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/13735\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T06:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:10:07","slug":"irelands-demographic-time-bomb-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/13735\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s demographic time bomb \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Ireland is sitting on a demographic time bomb, set to detonate in about four decades, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-finance\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-finance\/\">Department of Finance<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a report on where it thinks the population will be in 2065 (somewhere between 6.77 million and 7.59 million depending the level of migration), the department highlighted a fundamental problem that is now engulfing most industrialised countries, namely the diminishing ratios of workers to retirees or the increasing ratio of retirees to workers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Having a multiple of workers for every one retired, pensionable-aged worker is a financial necessity. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The State\u2019s pension system relies on contributions from workers while income tax receipts pay for the State\u2019s healthcare provision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2025\/09\/10\/states-population-could-hit-76m-in-four-decades-department-estimates\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">State\u2019s population could hit 7.6m in four decades, department estimatesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The department\u2019s report predicts that the State\u2019s old-age dependency ratio (the number of retirees to workers) will increase from 23.1 per cent in 2022 to 55.2 per cent in 2065.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThis will have significant policy implications for pension sustainability, the working-age tax burden, labour market dynamics, and healthcare demand,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Put simply, instead of having three to four workers for every retiree, we\u2019ll soon only have just one, creating a financial black hole at the heart of the exchequer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Government is hoping to build up excess corporation tax receipts in a new national wealth fund to help pay for this but it is unlikely to be enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Government has a very narrow tax base and has essentially sat on its hands in the face of calls to broaden it. The windfall nature of corporation tax has probably driven the inertia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">But as the department\u2019s report highlights it needs to urgently plan for an older population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It also highlighted that as birth and fertility rates fall, inward migration will be \u201cthe sole driver of labour force growth in the long run\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">By the same token, it noted that 60 per cent of high-skilled immigrants left Ireland within five years which had negative implications for productivity and for the Government\u2019s fiscal position as they tend to pay more tax.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It linked this trend to the quality of life issues including the current housing shortage, which is itself a product of the State\u2019s failure to plan for a bigger population. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland is sitting on a demographic time bomb, set to detonate in about four decades, according to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6572,1398,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-13735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cantillon","tag-department-of-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}