Auto enrollment pensions

I understand your point, and am OK with it as long as its optional, thats my view..

I know this isn't specificilly on-topic but you sometimes need to look at things from others point of view and their experiences.

There's a lot to be said for "living your life" when you can and when it matters most, if you can.

Your kids will only be young for a short time, there's only so many years you can go on holiday with them.

Your health is your wealth and you only ever know how good your health is at that current moment. You never really know what is around the corner for you, your partner or your family.

I know playing the numbers, the chances are good that you will get into your 60's etc but as you grow older you also see people of your own ages maybe not get there, or face serious illness issues with themselves or partner etc.

I think it was Mark Twain whose line was:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones that you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover"

You can obviously use various levels of that throughout your live and obviously you need to think about your life long term but people need to balance these things.

I don't honestly think that's all that unique to Ireland. Most of Europe doesn't really have a widespread investor culture, other than amongst the very wealthy. It's very unlike the US in that regard, and it's also one of the reasons why European capital markets are narrower. Ireland isn't as extreme a case as it sometimes convinces itself it is, but it also comes from a position where most households, basically flew by the seat of their pants, with very little depth of wealth under them. That's not all that unusual in an EU context btw or in the UK for that matter either.

Ireland genuinely doesn't have a whole lot of intergenerational wealth and assets tend to be bolted onto primary residence value in most households.

Also the out of control housing market and rampant speculation is going to put people in worse off positions as there's very little disposable income if it's all being sucked up in enormous rents and mortgages. That's the money that could be going into funding pensions and investments into other areas of the economy too.

The panic I see coming through is people who are now in their 40s who've rented long term without any stability and will have no assets at all in their 60s. That's a situation we haven't seen large numbers of people in in a very long time, and in many ways has more in common with how things were several generations ago, i.e. people who were adults in the 1920s-50s when there was far more rental and before the modern mortgaged era had taken off.

We're also talking up this idea of life-time rental without any idea how that is going to work. People's incomes aren't going to be able to cope with endless rent payments once they hit retirement, and there's no real plan for any of this from what I can see.

Housing stability is a huge part of the equation and it's just not being addressed as it goes beyond a 4-year political term in thinking and there's a lot of gabbing random bits of models from Berlin or whatever in discussions that are likely unsustainable in the way we do things here.

Ah look, I don't disagree with your opinion at all. I suppose if we could predict the future or relive the past life would be a lot easier but the point I make is balance is a good thing.