Time to grow up over issue of ageing and the workplace

It is a long time since an Irish Taoiseach - Charlie Haughey – was able to boast about the country’s youthful population, about the fact that half of us were aged under 25.

Back in the 1980s, we were young and poor, by European standards. The problem was a lack of jobs for our growing population. Since then, we have grown middle-aged. As family sizes have fallen, we have enjoyed what economists refer to as a "demographic dividend" as the ratio of people of working age to dependents – young and old - has risen.