Ireland's recession brings about a baby boom

Oh I just remembered something... baby booms mean demands for school places in four or five years time. And secondary school places in a futher 6 yrs time... and University places in a further whenever they get back from their gap dropout years. I'm sure the Irish Govt will be planning to for the need to provide teachers for all the these booming babies. I won't even mention child support etc...

Baby Booms are (were?) common during recessions in Ireland because the mothers – mostly single, unemployed or unemployable - could get generous Child Allowances for each of them. So if, like one 23 yr old mother I met during the recession of the 80’s, you had six children you’d get a lot of dosh from the State and wouldn’t need a man to go out and find work to feed everyone. Plus with all those kids, you’d get a Council house at minimal rent. It just made economical sense. It was one of the reasons Ireland had a lot of illegal immigrants in recent years; make babies with Irish (or European) woman citizen, get money for free. But that may be changing now, as welfare allowances for additional children are being drastically reduced. Then there’s the case of a Sham Irish marriage attempt - as the case of the Pakistani cricketer who sought to marry a young Latvian woman (i.e. European citizen) in Donegal in order to gain Irish/European citizenship. Police objected and his case was thrown out of Court yesterday >> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0126/1224263119350.html) << setting a new warning to those who try to abuse the Irish Social Welfare system. Like Irish women who abuse the system to gain free money in recessionary times by making babies that sadly many can’t even parent.