[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

[circlefavshape]

There are housing crises in cities all over Europe and the US

[romafirst3]

there is no welfare trap.

[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.

[KoolKat23]

I agree with you on your point on siphoned off funds.

Property development hasn't ground to halt but is insufficient for the ever increasing demand, developers are focusing on improved margins over volumes. A symptoms of their market first approach more than anything else.

Definitely need more investment in housing, public transport and healthcare, some ambition there would be very useful.

More policing won't do anything for social issues, solve the underlying issues, social disengagement, lack of opportunities, nip any new toxic laissez-faire/not my problem culture in the bud.

[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.

[dkersten]

Ok, and?

I don’t like my high tax bill just as much as the next person, but of all the things the money gets spent on, social housing isn’t something I’m particularly upset about.

[all2]

I was just being pedantic and slightly Puritan. I apologize if I misunderstood your position.

[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.

[romafirst3]

Or perhaps it is just as useful because it tells you where you need to and can improve.

[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

[ToucanLoucan]

Literally in the headline of the source you linked states 20% are affordable or social housing, not all social housing.

And a ten second google about what "social housing" means as I'm not Irish and don't know, tells me that social housing is not, in fact, free and is instead adjusted rent based on your ability to pay. I suppose it's not impossible that some of it is free, since some people may not be able to pay anything, but this is some incredible goal post shifting from:

> Government is giving free houses

To:

> By law all new developments are required to have 20% social housing

Which then after going to your linked source became:

> Law change to make 20% of units in new developments affordable or social homes

So 1 in 5 newly developed homes has to be affordable or social housing, which is rented, not gifted as property to the unfortunate resident. The horror.

You're of course entitled to disagree with these measures and programs, but if you have to go so far as to be within shouting distance of outright lying, it kind of implies you don't have a good position that can be backed by the actual facts on the ground as opposed to your ideological predispositions.

[negamax]

Have you heard of HAP? Please read up on it. It's budget and impact on the everyday person. It's a roundabout way to giving free housing to people who don't work by taking money from people who do.

End result is a broken and inflated marketplace

[ToucanLoucan]

Sure. But speaking as an American, our housing market is plenty inflated and absolutely ridiculous, and we do everything just about short of shooting the homeless on sight here. So giving people places to live I don't think is the direct correlation to an inflated market that you think it is.

And like, to be totally honest and pinko commie scum of me, I am completely fine with being slightly less well off if it means people in my area get taken care of. That doesn't bother me.

[romafirst3]

I totally agree on principle but for those who are stuck in a transactional mindset (conservative/libertarian etc) I would argue that paying for housing and welfare for poor people is just good business sense. Crime is incredibly expensive and when pushed to the edge people disconnected from society are more likely to both need to perform crime to survive but also have nothing to lose from performing criminal acts. If you take care of people's basic needs with a safety net you actually enable them to contribute to society (economically and culturally) and it is a couple of order of magnitudes cheaper than criminalizing them. And guess what, people still desire to earn more money, so they still have plenty of drive to better themselves, they just aren't completely fucked if they fall on hard times.

[generic92034]

Requiring a percentage of social housing with new developments is quite common in many EU countries, though.

[piva00]

Ok, so not really free housing.

[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?

[basisword]

So about half of the debt per capita of the US?

[throwaway55671]

Per capita is a dumb indicator for this, though. USA has GDP in tens of trillions. Ireland has 47 times less than that.

[basisword]

I agree but it's the dumb indicator OP decided to use.

[turndown]

Others have pointed out that this amount is comfortable enough relative to GDP, but I also want to point of your method of arguing is dishonest. There will never be a day where the entire debt of a country is divided up among the citizens and then they each would have to pay that amount, so saying it’s 60k debt per each soul is kind of like a football fan saying that each Kansas City Chiefs fan each won .00001% of a Super Bowl Trophy last year. It’s sovereign debt.

[anotherhue]

Emigrants.

[superb_dev]

Huh?

[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.

[Fordec]

The debt was built up majority bailing out the banks from the 2008 housing crisis to the cost of $85B. If it was spent on welfare, it was on corporate welfare.

As for health,the health outcomes are 6 years more life per person for $7.1k/person/yr compared to the US which costs $12.5kpp/yr.

[rsynnott]

> All of that money was thrown into the welfare pit.

Largely bailing out the banks, actually. Debt fell to practically nothing prior to the financial crisis, then leapt up, and has been kinda flat ever since. So, I mean, arguably welfare for the rich? We were arguably over-generous with the banks.

> What does Ireland has to show for such a large government employees. Health service is in tatters, so is housing.

Again, that is because we _don't actually spend very much on it_, to a large extent. As I said, I think we should be spending more, particularly on building housing.

I'm a bit confused; what sort of changes do you want to see? Cuts to the dole? That wouldn't make any significant difference to the state's finances. Cuts to pensions (the bulk of social welfare)? I mean, good luck with that; no politician is going to run on a policy of annoying old people.

[negamax]

Please visit https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/

Welfare dependency in Ireland is of another level. 4% figure is cooked by engaging people into government skill programs

[rsynnott]

So, the biggest items under social protection:

* Pension (10.69bn) - Can't touch this

* Illness, disability, and carers (5.6bn) - This is also largely old people; a lot of it should arguably come out of the health budget

* Working age income supports (4.11bn) - This is programmes for low-income working people.

Way down the bottom: "Working age employment supports", at 655mn. That's the dole. It is comparatively nothing.

Again, what specific changes do you think should be made? How would they be beneficial?

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Isn’t the debt then also cooked because the majority was from a government provided bailout program for the banks?

[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

[rsynnott]

But, I mean, it's not _true_, unless you're defining 'largely' as something under 50%.