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Typically, financial planners highlight their service offering as being; advice on asset allocation, retirement planning, cash flow analysis, insurance, wealth protection, estate planning and so on.

We constantly hear reports of a pent-up demand/ wave of money to be spent as the economy here and internationally opens up post pandemic. This will be following a period of unprecedented government supports where money was pumped into the economy to keep it afloat when it was put into shutdown.

Not a week goes by where we aren’t asked for our opinion on crypto currencies. A friend recently quoted an article he read where when describing crypto currencies, it said “Everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers” - this probably sums it up for me.

Something that has been talked about repeatedly during the Covid-19 crisis is just how much we don't know. It has been a lesson in how limited our foresight can be. At first, we did not know how far or how quickly the virus might spread. Neither did we know how severe it may turn out to be.

Defined Benefit Pension Schemes, which offer members a fixed level of pension income in retirement, have become less and less common in Ireland in recent years. Due to increased longevity and difficulties in providing these benefits, a large number of these scheme have wound up in recent years or closed to new members.

When financial planners are asked at parties about what they do for a living, many hesitate to be specific because the inevitable follow-up question relates to where they think the stock market, the currency, interest rates or the economy are heading.