The point I'm making is that elderly people were entitled to protest when they were being targetted in isolation of other well off people in the community. I said the medical card should have been removed in conjunction with other fiscal policies focussed on wealthy young parents, millionaire developers and bankers, overpaid and pensioned politicians etc. Of course anybody earning over €70,000 doesn't need a full free medical service. But fiscal policies should target everybody equally. I think a lot of elderly people, already bewildered by the loss of their savings, were terrified of becoming an easy target for Government. Its the use of the words 'greedy and selfish' to describe them all that I find offensive.
How dare you.
Make up your mind.Of course anybody earning over €70,000 doesn't need a full free medical service.
Make up your mind.
I agree that everyone should be targeted, with well off parents not getting tax free social welfare and well off pensioners not getting universal free healthcare.
My own father is retired and after 55 years working has lost 85% of his pension fund. Them's the breaks.
My how dare you related to your statement that they were being greedy and selfish. From my first post I made it clear that I felt the card should have been removed in conjunction with other measures. I have not changed my mind on that.
And I made it clear that I was talking about the rich pensioners who protested in front of the Dail about it... for feck sake, they were singing "we shall overcome" as if they were the victim of some egregious breach of basic human right instead of well healed pensioners who had a freebie taken away.
I'm pretty confident we have the highest ratio of nurses per capita in the OECD.
Pity so many of them are walking around in suits with clipboards.
This is a dangerous argument. In many European countries the falling birthrate means that there is a looming crisis. Today's workers are tomorrow's pensioners. Today's children are tomorrow's taxpayers. Those who resent subsidies being given to to today's children will one day find themselves relying on the tax receipts from those same children to pay for their state pensions and state-subsidised healthcare.
I would. The global population growth is undoubtedly true - but the population growth is not coming from Western Europe. Along with declining birth rates, Western Europe will, because of population growth elsewhere, continue to have a sustained period of immigration.
If you end up with a two-tier country of old 'natives' and young immigrants, do you think the young immigrants will really want to subsidise the aged through their taxes? There are tumultuous times ahead.
The elderly have been treated like dirt in this country by a brash and greedy celtic tiger generation who have given new meaning to the word 'selfish'.
That's a great sound bite but can you substantiate it in any way?The elderly have been treated like dirt in this country by a brash and greedy celtic tiger generation who have given new meaning to the word 'selfish'.
Why would young immigrants think any differently of subsidising the elderly than young natives?.
Because the elderly would not be of immigrant stock. I thought I made the point clearly enough. But it is not something we need to worry about in Ireland.
That's a great sound bite but can you substantiate it in any way?
I still don't get it. If I moved from a country where I couldn't get work to one where I could, I don't think it would bother me too much that my taxes were being used to subsidise benefits for the elderly natives. Presuming of course I was subject to the same taxes and entitled to the same benefits upon retirement as everybody else.
Can you point to a real-world example country where such discontent reigns?
Just because we don't agree it doesn't mean that we can't explore the others position.Purple,I said, after our last heated debate, that we obviously can't agree on this. I have given my views and some personal examples
and acknowledged that, if you don't agree you don't agree. End of, surely??
Just because we don't agree it doesn't mean that we can't explore the others position.
This is a discussion forum. When you make sweeping statements and back them up with nothing but thin air you should not be surprised if people call you out on it.We've already done that. I'm not going there again. Wasn't impressed with some of the things you said but agreed to differ rather than get any more heated and angry. Okay?
There is no country with a well developed welfare state yet facing a huge pension funding deficit as a result of a shrinking population, much less one where the working population has seen huge immigration to make up for the "shrinking natives". But these things take ddecades
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