Pete Lunn

It's really important to have a debate about this.

Of course it is.

It's a huge societal change.

That's fine.

But we need to understand that people seeking international protection, the asylum seekers, are a small proportion, and that the majority of people who are coming here

are coming in for education to make a contribution to our economy, mostly doing jobs that Irish people don't want to do or that we cannot fill.

Would you agree with that, David?

Yeah, it's interesting, actually, because for a long time, Ireland was the envy of Europe for its high fertility rate.

And it now appears that we're kind of converging on the European situation of having a fertility rate that is substantially below replacement.

So replacement would be 2.1 children per woman.

Now it seems down to more like 1.5.

So that's a really big difference.

Well, certainly if that continues.

I mean, but a couple of points on this.

I mean, first of all, in my view, we certainly shouldn't be talking to other people about how many children they should have.

That's a matter for people to make their decision.

And what we need to do is research why people are making the decisions that they are.

Now, interesting, obviously, some of that is bad economics, right?

So the housing situation is really bad for family formation.

Okay.