The number of people aged 65 and over in Ireland will treble over the coming years and highlights the urgent need to find solutions to the pensions challenge, Minister for Social Affairs Seamus Brennan said today.
Mr Brennan said the biggest challenge facing the country was convincing almost half the country's workforce of two million that they should take out personal pensions.
"The welcome increase in longevity, and the fact we are now all living longer and healthier lives, means that over the coming 50 years that figure for over 65s will rise dramatically to over 1.5 million men and women," he said.
"In stark terms it means that 900,000, some 500,000 of whom are women, are gradually heading towards retirements in which their main source of income will be the State pension."
He added that the Government is set to publish a Green Paper "within weeks" which give directions on whether Ireland needs some type of mandatory system. "Then it will be the time for some hard, but fair, decisions to be made," he said.
The Minister was speaking at the announcement of two publications on older people today.
The first, A Social Portrait of Older People in Irelandanalyses the current position of older people in Ireland and will assist in policy making.
The second, Information Age How to Access Senior Citizen Benefits,is a new information and advice booklet and resource pack for older people published by the Citizens Information Board (formerly Comhairle).
It will be posted to all social welfare pensioners and distributed to other pensioners through welfare offices, Citizen Information Centres and voluntary organisations.
Research shows that there are over 460,000 people aged 65 or over in the country, that the number of older people in consistent poverty has dropped to 3.9 per cent, and that 90 per cent of the over-65s own their own homes.