From sick man to rich man
But the Irish have to pay for the privilege of living in a wealthy country
My niece, who lives in Dublin and is a well-qualified pharmacist, is not sure she can afford to go back to work in the next month or so when her maternity leave is over. She would have to pay a childminder so much money that it almost wouldn’t be worth her while.
Why so much, I ask. Are childminders in Ireland up there with property developers and lawyers when it comes to extreme remuneration?
No, it seems everyone in Ireland, particularly Dublin, has to get paid really well just to get by. It’s mainly because of the sky-high cost of renting any accommodation, but Ireland is also one of the most expensive countries in the EU, with prices about 46% higher than the EU average.
So my niece is no better off than Irish mothers were in the 1970s when it was almost impossible to get back into employment after childbirth. Not because of the cost of childminders, but because back then many employers had restrictions on mothers returning to work.
My niece’s dilemma reminded me that I happened to be in Ireland last year when some or other economic institution declared it to be the second-wealthiest country, as well as one of the most competitive. As I recall, I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for service and read the entire report before getting any.
Much like the service, the food was tired and shabby. The only thing that screamed the restaurant’s fancy pretensions was the bill: 46% above EU average and about 346% above the price of a delicious and delightfully well-served meal at Chapmans Peak Hotel in Hout Bay.
It’s not just childminders and shoddy, expensive service; for those not in the top 5% income bracket there is a sense of decay about the place. The €10bn pumped into infrastructure by the EU back in the 1980s — more than repaid through the EU’s grab of Irish fish stocks — helped to improve the dismal national road system. But much more needed to be done, not just on the roads but on public transport and on a public health system that’s in tatters despite about 50% of the Irish having private health insurance.
Of course the stress and strain on public services has been made worse by 1-million of Ireland’s 5-million people being immigrants. But they are recent immigrants who are working and adding to the government’s tax receipts, which surely should be used to provide them with public services.
Remarkably, Uisce Éireann (Irish Water) blamed the economic upturn and the population increase when it recently called on the people of Dublin to restrict their water use. Underinvestment in water infrastructure has been a decadeslong issue in one of the world’s most rain-soaked countries.
During the 1980s I lived in Ireland when, as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, it was referred to as the “sick man” of Europe. There were occasional electricity outages and public transport was a frustrating joke, but the country had an effective public health system, widespread and excellent public schools and little sign of a housing shortage. As for restrictions on water use, well, that would have been laughable. Maybe Ireland’s world-beating emigration rates at the time helped relieve stress on public services.
So, who’s really better off? The 3-million or so Irish people of the 1980s or the 5-million of the early 21st century? Has Ireland made the most of the corporate-friendly tax regime that has encouraged tax-avoiding tech and pharma multinationals to set up home there? As one of the largest corporate tax havens in the world, it is bound to rank highly on a wealth list. In 2023, these footloose multinationals helped the Irish infrastructureshy government report a €10bn surplus, an economic fact that always helps competitiveness scores.
According to yet another one of those global lists, last year Ireland ranked 14th in terms of happiness (don’t ask). Finland ranked the happiest, for the sixth year in a row, which is a bit odd given that Finland has one of the highest rates of depression in the world. Just for perspective, South Africa ranked 85th, making us the second-happiest people in Africa, after Algeria.
We wouldn’t have tolerated happiness surveys back in 1980s Ireland, but I think being constantly told we were the “sick man” of Europe made us sad. Perhaps being told you live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world makes my niece happier.