Where is all the money going?

Nearly 2billion in dole payments, unemployment very low and job vacancies all over the place.

Great country this.

3.7 Billion (well nearly) on inclusion???

The bigger question is how well it's being spent not where it's going.

They couldnt move in a heartbeat.

It would actually take years for these companies to move because building capacity in the supply chain elsewhere would take years in planning, construction, validation and regulatory approval.

The tech companies are different, because they are a essentially a tangible productless industry of fast and loose VC funds which burn bright and most dont last the test of time.

One major factor is purchasing power parity, simply put your money doesn't buy as much here as other countries

According to the World Bank, our PPP rating is 0.79. The US is rated as 1 so basically something that costs $1 in the US will cost the equivalent of $1.25 here

It's important to remember that's on average, specific items can cost a lot more. And the US is a very high GDP economy to start with

This is pretty significant, if everything costs 25% more here then someone on €50k per annum here can only afford the equivalent of someone earning €40k in other countries

Another factor is that we have a pretty high median income by international standards

As much as people like to moan about the multinationals, they do employ a lot of people here and they often pay well. High earners can afford to spend more and this means businesses can charge them more for the same stuff, which drives inflation

Just because someone on minimum wage doesn't have the money to buy a €6 coffee doesn't matter if there's enough engineers, accountants and doctors to buy coffees

Since this immediately turned into a "complain about the government" thread, one can fairly ask what the governments duty is in all of this

IMO there's two aspects, keeping inflation at a sustainable level and ensuring people at every level of income can maintain an acceptable living standard

On the first, I'd say they're doing an adequate job, although most of the work is being done by the ECB raising interest rates and putting the brakes on growth. I think the government could be somewhat more targeted in their supports and are risking driving more inflation than stopping it

I would like to see more forward thinking policies from the government to ensure price stability of some goods. For example through domestic energy production and storage, or agricultural grants to ensure we retain the ability to grow essential foodstuffs ourselves

The other aspect is maintaining a minimum standard of living. There's a lot of debate over what exactly the minimum standard is, but I think it's fair to say that someone on the minimum wage should probably be able to survive without having to decide between food or rent for the month (or getting raped by their landlord in lieu of rent as was recently discovered)

I would say this is one area the government is lagging badly. To some extra their hands are tied, for example they can't provide affordable housing to everyone in the space of 12 months without seriously driving down house prices and causing massive inflation in the construction industry. This will annoy existing homeowners because their houses will all lose value and they can't do any home improvements because every builder is busy on houses

Unfortunately for the government, I don't think there's any way out that doesn't piss someone off. IMO there needs to be a system of price caps introduced nationwide on property sales. Price inflation needs to be capped at something like 2% per annum and sales over this need to be taxed severely.

At the same time there needs to be a large social housing building program, with some of the houses built being used for social or affordable housing and the remainder being sold privately. The government should create an SOE to do this to ensure they're getting best value and not being fleeced by private developers

The healthcare system is also always going to be in some degree of trouble. It turns out that nurses and doctors are both in extremely high demand in every country and it's pretty easy to get a job in a higher paying country than Ireland. If you were a doctor would you prefer to make maybe €100k before tax in Ireland (at probably 52% effective tax rate) or around $250k in the US (with a lower tax rate and cost of living)?

I think we need to aim for a more universal healthcare service rather than the 2 tiered system. A lot of people point at the NHS as an example but given how that has been hollowed out by the Tories, I personally think a fully government funded model is too vulnerable to political interference.

I think something more like the French system would be good where most GP and hospital services aren't free but they are strictly regulated and well subsidised so the price for the end user is low, typically €12-15 AFAIK. Something like this might be more realistic to achieve and removes the whole argument about who "deserves" a medical card and who doesn't

I also think more digitisation of healthcare services is needed. For example if patient records could be shared more easily between practices (with patient consent of course) it would make the online doctor's services a lot better IMO

Please never use Coldplay fans as a metric to judge Irish society.

I agree that it's an ideological failure, relying on the free market to provide something which is easy to game (housing, healthcare)

But realistically, who has any better ideas? Labour, the party of Southside socialism who have about as much personality as some pond scum?

Or maybe the law breaking populists in Sinn Fein, who's entire policy platform seems to be saying they'll spend more imagination dollars on everything

How's about the anti government quasi socialists in PBP or Solidarity or whatever they're called. Kinda hard to be anti government when they're the government, I'm curious to see how many shades of sh!t would be in their pants if they ever won an election and had to use their brains

And finally the moany Social Democrats, who I literally forgot about until I was about to hit the Post Comment button. I guess just complaining about everything makes you pretty easy to forget, they managed to make Labour look interesting by comparison

And then there's the fringe parties, a diverse bunch of political viewpoints which seem to feature racism a lot and who claim to represent the silent majority despite never getting enough votes to get elected. I guess that silent majority must also be dead or something

So yeah, the sad news is that we're led by idiots. But it's still important to look at their dumb ideas, try to figure out if any of them are vaguely realistic and place your vote. At least then you can make sure the idiots you agree with most have a chance 😂

Zero accountability in the pubic sector is why our taxes are wasted every year.

Where do you get the ppp stats from?

It would be interesting to compare which countries are 1.5 etc.