{"id":235656,"date":"2026-01-09T07:13:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/235656\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T07:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:13:19","slug":"bill-linnane-irelands-birth-rate-is-falling-but-weve-done-our-part-for-the-economy-by-churning-out-four-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/235656\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Linnane: Ireland\u2019s birth rate is falling, but we\u2019ve done our part for the economy by churning out four taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">We didn\u2019t think too much about the economics of having four children, but this aspect of parenting is very, very important\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"We're being told to have more babies, but they do cost money. Photo: Picture posed\/Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/large family in bed.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">We&#8217;re being told to have more babies, but they do cost money. Photo: Picture posed\/Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u200bIf I was going to make the suggestion that people should have more kids, I\u2019d aim for a point in the calendar when families are feeling upbeat and positive, like coming to the end of the school year before the endless promise of the summer hols, or coming to the end of the summer hols when you finally get to hand your feral children back to the open arms of the Department of Education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">I\u2019d pick a time when people were financially stable, feeling positive, and as stress free as parents can be. I would not make the suggestion that people should have more kids in the middle of Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We didn\u2019t think too much about the economics of having four children, but this aspect of parenting is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17711,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-235656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-bill-linnane","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235656","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=235656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}