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'How do you cater for a society in which there are more pensioners than children?'

Patrick Murphy
Patrick Murphy Patrick Murphy

How do you cater for a society in which there are more pensioners than children? This is one of the topics which they are almost certainly not talking about up at Stormont, but whether they talk about it or not, it is the most significant challenge facing the future government of this state.

Yesterday's projected population figures indicate that ten years from now, we will have more people over 65 than children under 15. The Irish population structure has traditionally been depicted as a pyramid with a broad base, representing a high number of children, which gradually narrows towards the top as fewer people live to be old.

For the first time in our history, that pyramid will soon be turned upside down, with more old people and fewer children. This new trend will present challenges for government, individual families and wider society.

Government faces two challenges. In terms of actual numbers, it must cater for a population increase of 10,000 per year for the next twenty years. However, with proper planning it should be able to provide for the necessary additional housing, roads, water and electricity.

More challenging will be its need to address the changing population structure. It must provide a huge step-up in the level of health and social care for an increased elderly population. But the current health service is already unfit for purpose.

Our outpatient waiting list increased by 17 per cent this year, some patients are waiting 155 weeks to see a specialist and there are currently about 35,000 more surgical procedures required here than the NHS has capacity for.

So how will an ailing health service cater for additional demands? Addressing that question might focus minds at Stormont. Have the talks considered the question of additional sheltered housing, an enhanced system of home helps and the provision of more nursing homes?

Our elderly will require more GPs, but their numbers are already falling - and we will need additional money for pensions, prescriptions, and winter fuel allowances, even though we will pay more tax by working longer.

We already suffer from a shortage of doctors and nurses at all levels, so our universities clearly need to educate more of them. But our universities are already short of investment and none of our five main parties have ever produced a policy for higher education.

A decline in the number of children in our society will not necessarily save significant resources, because if you take half a dozen children out of each class here, that class would still require a teacher. Indeed in many cases, it would still mean an over-sized class.

We already produce far more teachers than we have jobs for, so maybe it is time to turn out fewer teachers and more medics. But would any political party here support that decision?

The prospect facing many families is that elderly relatives will suffer from decreased state provision of health and social care.

While what might be termed "young elderly" grandparents currently play an important role in child-minding, few families have the time or resources to care for the advanced elderly. The increased number of old people will require help from the state and/or their family, but modern society is poorly equipped to offer either.

We face a huge social problem which will soon require raising additional money, re-shaping our health and social services and re-configuring government spending priorities. We have a poor record in all three, a situation which must change if we are to ensure that a longer life does not mean a worse life for many.