Is Ireland the Worst-Run Rich Country in Europe?

Ireland looks like a success story on paper: booming tax revenues, record public spending, and a global reputation as a modern, wealthy economy. Yet on the ground, something feels deeply off. In this episode, we step back from the noise of protests, strikes, and rising fuel costs to ask how can a country with so much money deliver so little? From housing and healthcare to transport and infrastructure, the pattern is the same, soaring budgets, missed targets, and no consequences. We explore the idea that this is an insidious system where incentives are broken, accountability is absent, and a permanent “Mandarin class” operates behind the scenes, untouched by elections or outcomes. The result is an economy where public spending fuels inflation, squeezes workers, and hollows out the productive sector. This has graduated from a left-versus-right story to a question of care versus contempt. Unless that changes, Ireland risks squandering a once-in-a-generation windfall while the cracks in the system grow wider. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to Is Ireland the Worst-Run Rich Country in Europe? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Is Ireland the Worst-Run Rich Country in Europe? is an episode from The David McWilliams Podcast by David McWilliams.

This episode is 43:34 long.

This episode was published on Apr 15, 2026.

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