This Paper describes some important economic and demographic changes in Irish society over recent decades. Some forecasts are also included. In the case of the economic variables covered (which relate principally to the labour market) these are mainly medium-term (up to 2005), but extend over a...

The Irish health care system offers a tax financed, universal entitlement to public care at a nominal user fee, nonetheless 50% of the Irish population purchase private health insurance. This paper empirically models the propensity to insure as a function of individual and household...

Segmented labour market theory rests on two central tenets. The first is that it is meaningful to distinguish between primary labour markets providing "good" jobs with high wages and stable employment and secondary labour markets providing "bad" jobs with low pay and unstable employment. The...

The pensions industry's argument that the favourable tax treatment of occupational pension funds amounts to tax deferment rather than tax exemption is evaluated using a net present value approach to estimate the cost of the tax foregone in taxing employee pension contributions on a consumption...

The strong link between private pensions and employment status means that there is little interest in the equity of private pension arrangements since it is expected that inequality in earnings will be reproduced in inequality in pensions. Nevertheless, the equity of private pensions is an issue...