By Andrew Carey ( ) & Darragh Hannon( )

 Ireland has an ageing population and by 2050 this will put a massive strain on the tax payer.  The country will need more money to pay the pensioners than they do now with less people working protionally than now.  As you can imagine without planning ahead this will massive effects on health care, social welfare, and many other services that are provided for pensioners.  But what is the solution.

 In my opinion we are best served to make people working now increase the amount they put into their pensions by giving an incentive scheme. Perhaps like for every $5 you save the government will give you $1. This will allow the state pension to be cut in the future without harming the well being of pensioners.  Also when it comes to the age of retirement the Old Age Pension should be paid at different amounts to different people depending on their wealth.

 There should be boards set in place in hospitals to plan for being able to give free health care to the elderly on the future instead of pensioners just relaying on the medical card. This could be done by encouraging medical research in this country now and perhaps selling the research in the future as this would help fund hospitals whilst also creating high quaility science jobs here.  Finally schemes should be put in place where families get tax benefits if they look after their parents when they hit retirement age. This will help cut down on nursing home costs to the tax payer.

 Their is going to be a massive problem in world energy in 20 years time. Now is the time to act.  If we begin to set up companies in Ireland now we will hopefully be able to become a world leader in energy in the world due to our massive aray of natural resources.  This will bring wealth to the country.

 Create massive wind farms around Ireland and off shore wind farms also.  Get the investment from outside the country by attracting companies to Ireland by offering tax breaks like we did for Dell and other companies. This will create highly skilled jobs and thus employment allowing the government to get more tax in the years to come

 We become a world leader in energy and build a interconnector to Europe. This will allow us to sell our energy surplus to Europe.  Thus giving the Irish government o sustainable source of income that they can us to improve health care, social welfare, transport etc.  This in turn reducing the strain on the tax payer in the future.

 If we become leaders in energy toursim will increase as people will want to see the massive wind farmers and water sports available on the resoviors.  This again increasing jobs and tax income for the government whilst also bringing more people into the country where they will spend money and once more giving the government more income.