Work up to 75!

Why would they refund PRSI? That money is already spent. I've no idea what you mean here.

So you know today's tax funds today's pensions. And you know there will be fewer taxpayers as a proportion of old people in the future. So what do you think will happen? I've said what I think will happen (work longer, shorter window between retirement and death, smaller benefits and reduced services for retired people, sell your home if you have one to pay for end of life care) .

You've said I'm missing the point and being anal. So what do you think will happen?

If, instead of printing vasts amounts of money via QE programmes everytime some mega 'too-big-to-fail' faceless corporation trips up over its own self greed that we just implement a permanent slow drip-drip expansion of the money supply by printing it just to cover pensions. Therefore, controlled inflation. It would keep alot of the world hooked on the greed for more money.

Just to cover pensions? Christ almighty, what kind of end of the line, "can the last person to leave please turn off the lights" thinking is that? We need other things far more than pensions - well, only if you want the country to survive beyond your lifetime.

I think we should look after pensioners because it's the right thing to do. But we also need to look after other people like the working people and young people. Small issues like having a house to live in when you get home form work and being able to afford childcare while you're working are necessary before you can pay tax to give to pensioners.

I'm actually proud to pay tax. I have neighbours across the road who have the ambulance out to the house twice a week on average, carers 3 times a day. Pharmacy deliveries as needed. They must cost a fortune. Bit that's the decision we make to fund their last years and keep them healthy and together. I look at the care they get and feel proud that my tax pays for it.

Do other people feel proud when they drive past a school or a hospital or see an old person getting health care, knowing they helped fund it?

A bit of both. I admire the fact that we educate our youth and provide healthcare for a good swathe of the population. However, I'll hone in a little on healthcare here - there are some serial 'attend the doctors' for any slightest ailment types and all they do is hold up access to genuine cases who require healthcare. I think a voucher-style system is needed to cut down on the amount of unnecessary visits to the GP. In the current climate where we have a shortage of GPs, we really need them tending to 81yo Betty who is suffering instead of a low-paid Karen in her late 30s fishing for yet another sick note off work.

Thanks for asking. The money supply has expanded in mind-boggling amounts in spurts and stops (often retractions) for various reasons over the course of modern history. Often these interventions have been to salvage what is often termed 'too big to fail' financial or otherwise linked institutions. These interventions only serve to continue the now perpetual 'boom-and-bust' cycles that recent politicians have only started to really come round to considering (shallow words) in countering.

To feed the natural inbuilt greed factor in all of us - we all desire higher wages, and prices to stay the same - we have to look at cause and effect of why wage increases for the average worker have a time-lag behind wage increases. We see this playing out at the moment - workers are restless as they see their wages have less buying power than they had over the last fifteen years.

While you may look at pensioners as 'being the least productive and most expensive people in the whole population', I see more value in these human beings who, the vast majority of, have endured much harsher living conditions while paying much higher interest rates and taxes than you or I could complain over a €14 pint in Stockholm about. We see across many parts of Europe the 'money follows the patient model', lets expand on that concept.

As I said earlier, the money supply will continue to expand regardless, I can guarantee you it will be used to bail out the next fcuk up in a 'too big to fail' sector of the economy and around we all will go again. Another boom-bust. Or we can say stuff that and put money into the circulation by a different method: I'd rather a pensioner benefit from printed money than some fcuking balance sheet on a Windows PC spreadsheet in an office on the 58th floor of a NYC building.

There are two types of State Pensions:

(1) State Pension Contributory - SPC - based on SI conts

(2) State Pension non-contributory = means-tested

I don't think it's correct to say that (1) will be means-tested in the future, as that is impossible.

It could happen, like in Australia, that (1) is abolished, and only (2) exists.

I do not agree that 265.30 per week is "a pittance".

It's not very high, okay.

But many people receiving it have zero regular housing costs, and have the following:

free travel pass

full medical card

free TV licence

35 pm off elec bill

It is.

All PRSI conts are paid into the SIF, not the exchequer.

You win. I have absolutely no counter argument to this scenario which exists entirely in your mind. Betty sounds like a delight. Even when shes making up an illness and wasting the doctor's time, shes still in the right. Shes merely demonstrating the broader societal need for connectedness. It's like a clever kind of protest. Good on Betty.

Karen in your imagination sounds like a right wagon. Even when she's under the pressure of her and her family losing their home, she's still faking 'stress'. And so devoid of class. €8 wine? Dreadful woman.

Anyway, back in the real world, it's not my job to make up back stories for patients. Probably just give people medical treatment according to their needs?

The country is full of Bettys and Karens, along with their male counterparts (fewer at Betty's age, men die younger).

Re Karen (I wouldn't have chosen a loaded name BTW) - she's working at a low-status job in the public service - or in a private company for that matter - and trying to make ends meet. She has few illusions about work, and will probably tell you she is only working for her pension. You know, the public service employs a great many Karens - 63% of the public service were women the last time I looked, and one reason for this imbalance is that a great many of them are in poorly-paid low-level jobs (and frequently suffer bullying from their superiors, often enough from their likes who managed to get in with a manager and received a promotion or two).

Another way of saying this is that the public service (but not just the PS) is highly exploitative of a particular cohort of women who do not have any great prospects, and whose pension entitlements won't be much more in the end than the State's old-age pension.

And by the way, a little empathy goes a long way ...