And the good news is... Ireland’s long-term prospects look promising

The comforting news is, however, that the Irish population, like that of Britain, France, Scandinavia and the US, is projected to keep on growing. For a country to reproduce itself, it requires the average woman to have 2.1 babies. Iceland is the only European country meeting that threshold, but Ireland is very close behind

ARE there too many of us or too few? It’s a question that has plagued all societies since Roman times.

Voltaire believed God was “on the side of the big battalions”. More recently, though, fears about the climate are closely linked to a sense that the world’s resources are being pushed to the limit.