[negamax]

Ireland should be an international study about how a state destroyed itself by running a gigantic welfare state despite all of world's money pouring into it

Almost €300B national debt. Government is giving free houses, money to people who don't work. It's the only relatively wealthy European country with unlimited dole. And people make a lifestyle out of living on welfare forever.

This is despite huge corporation tax receipts and income tax receipts by largely foreign born workforce

One in five people are directly or indirectly employed by the government of a tiny country.. it's just a waste from bottom to top and all are complicit

[circlefavshape]

How has the state destroyed itself? Most of the debt is from the bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis (debt quadrupled between 2007 and 2013)

> Government is giving free houses, money to people who don't work [...] and people make a lifestyle out of living on welfare forever

This is just the usual blah blah moaning about welfare states in general. What do you mean by "unlimited dole"?

[negamax]

Unlimited weekly money of €250 for people who don't work. This isn't a small amount. Specially on top of free housing by schemes like HAP. That can give as much as €2000/month in rent

End result is a destroyed housing market and young people who rather get trapped into welfare

[throwaway55671]

Free houses sounds very unlimited to me.

[KoolKat23]

Your framing is all wrong and certain points are incorrect too.

Clearly it's not a waste when at a GDP per capita level the country is in the top 5 in the world (and certainly the one with the largest population). Even if you want to strip out the tax aspect, the country has managed to improve living standards and now it ranks above average in living standards and earnings in Europe.

Debt means nothing when the population have the earning capacity to pay it off (people don't give loans they don't expect you can pay back). This is clearly being invested well and in productive capital.

It is definitely not unlimited dole. The social housing component ensures sufficient social mobility, so you actually can improve your own position in life. The country also has the most progressive tax system in Europe i.e. people pay their fare share (relatively speaking to other countries).

I will make a point on an assumption you infer, and no you are wrong, trickle down economics does not work. And secondly, there is value in investing in your residents.

[anotherhue]

Yes I'm as strong a critic as you'll find but GP's points are some fox news nonsense. The money was siphoned out and given mostly to corporations and homeowners.

Property construction has effectively halted, health services are catastrophically underfunded (search UHL crowding), public transport is less effective than horses and there's a collapse in recruiting for teachers and police because they can make 2-3x in Australia so they do.

As a result of lack of policing, anti-social behaviour is in full swing.

[superb_dev]

Why don’t people deserve free housing? We need it to fucking live, it’s essential

[all2]

Someone has to pay for the housing. It isn't free, the expense just gets shifted to someone else.

[romafirst3]

What are you talking about ?

The only failings I see with the Irish model is they don’t go far enough in some areas.

I’d like to see the healthcare system expanded for example.

Per captia they are extremely wealthy. Have free education including third level. No student debt. Are extremely educated. Very low crime (including a tiny murder rate). Very low homelessness (although pressure has increased on the system in the last few years because of refugees from Ukraine and asylum seekers - but I’m happy they are helping people and I think most Irish people are too).

They frequently rank highest on happiness measures and the fact that they worry about how young people feel about their future and are willing to make policy changes to accommodate them is a sign of strength not weakness.

Also caring for the less fortunate is a huge positive not a negative.

[throwaway55671]

> They frequently rank highest on happiness measures

If half of young people have low levels of mental wellbeing, perhaps the composite average indicator is not so useful.

[piva00]

Any sources for Ireland's government giving free houses?

[negamax]

By law all new developments are required to have 20% social housing. And google search will show you the extent of corruption and free money that goes hand in hand

source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/law-change-to-make-...

Also city councils run a large stock of social housing where tenants pay nothing and live for generations

[WhereIsTheTruth]

Being a welfare state is not the problem, that's the duty of the government, and should be an example for many countries

However, it's a tax heaven within Europe, therefore companies are not incentivized to create jobs, that's the problem

When you have nothing to do and nothing in your life to aspire to, you become sad

[rsynnott]

Ireland has almost the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, and a pretty high job vacancy rate.

> However, it's a tax heaven within Europe, therefore companies are not incentivized to create jobs, that's the problem

Eh? The tax haven aspect has created about 300,000 jobs, if you only count IDA client companies (and not companies who benefit from spending by those companies and their employees). Ireland had high unemployment from before independence to the 90s; since the tax haven (or, as an old Taoiseach insisted on calling it, "small open economy") thing got going, unemployment has plummeted.

[turndown]

I mean let’s be honest adults here - a 300B national debt is literally nothing. Not even worth discussing in a post or even acting like it’s a problem. Ireland ran a 4 billion euro deficit last year; again this is meaningless. You can dislike these policies you mentioned(on whatever basis…) but let’s not act like Ireland is burning here or something

[negamax]

What are you talking about? Ireland's population is mere 5M. That's €60K debt for each soul. And over €200K debt for a family. What does Ireland has to show for all this debt?

[rsynnott]

> Almost €300B national debt

Well, 223bn, but what's 77bn between friends? About 40% GDP. This puts it fairly low as far as developed countries go (Germany's 66%, UK 97%, US 130%, Japan 264%).

> Governing is giving free houses

I mean, not notably.

> money to people who don't work

Ireland has functional full employment (about 4% unemployment rate). Social welfare isn't particularly lavish by Western European standards.

> One in five people are directly or indirectly employed by the government of a tiny country.

That's reasonably low by western European standards.

Ireland has lots of problems, but _not spending enough money_ isn't one of them. We're not a particularly high-tax country by Western European standards, and we're running a surplus. If anything we should probably be spending more, to sort out the housing crisis if nothing else.

[negamax]

Yeah GDP is cooked and is largely inflated by the foreign corporations. What does Ireland have to show for that €223B debt? All of that money was thrown into the welfare pit.

What does Ireland has to show for such a large government employees. Health service is in tatters, so is housing. Come on. Put down the rose tinted glasses.

[padjo]

“A largely foreign born workforce” what right wing talking points claptrap is this?

[rsynnott]

About 12% of the population are non-citizen, 20% were born outside the state. Unemployment is 4%. How they're getting "largely foreign born workforce" from this, I don't know. It is numerically impossible.

[negamax]

That's no different than saying most/all corporations are foreign owned. Why is that a right wing claptrap? Irish right wingers are the dumbest people on the planet. Living off the foreign population in one of the largest welfare state