Half of Ireland's young people have low level of mental wellbeing
independent.ie
independent.ie
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
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
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.
End result is a broken and inflated marketplace
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.
But people in the states especially and even in parts of Europe are so hard up on this notion that the criminals are just criminals from birth, barely even human, just waiting for some way to exploit larger society or worse, them personally, somehow to "steal" their way to "the easy life" and it's just so detached from reality. Are there people who are just remorseless psychopaths ready to harm anyone at a moments notice for their own gain? Yeah, sure are, most of them end up being cops. The rest are people who are given few if any options to get by, and if crime is your only option to getting a meal, of course you're going to commit a fucking crime. It's like these people expect the homeless to just lie down and await death instead of stealing food.
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.
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.
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.
Welfare dependency in Ireland is of another level. 4% figure is cooked by engaging people into government skill programs
* 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?
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.
> 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"?
End result is a destroyed housing market and young people who rather get trapped into welfare
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.
If half of young people have low levels of mental wellbeing, perhaps the composite average indicator is not so useful.
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.
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
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
That’s a neat coincidence, but it doesn’t give me any insight on this problem. What I can say from the article is that it sounds just like articles in the US decrying Gen Z’s “failure to launch”.
It’s a real problem, but it doesn’t seem unique to Ireland. I guess people in UK and continental Europe all struggle with the same problems.
(originally https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/world/europe/ireland-hous...)
Allow me to further point out that 'just live with your parents' requires that your parents be close to your job. However the lion's share of jobs (worth having) are in Dublin. Therefore if you're not from Dublin you don't get the free parents rent, you pay the same $3k that you would rather pay as a mortgage or save as as downpayment, and are then outcompeted by those who were able to avail of the benefit.
Therefore what we're seeing is a total destruction of wealth for anyone outside of Dublin.
Nevermind the oft maligned truth that your ability to pay €X in monthly rent is insufficent evidence of your ability to pay €0.8X in a mortgage thanks to the new rules brought in after the previous generation a) got their houses and b) ruined everything with bailout debt.
The social contract has not been completely ruptured. I checked last week.
But in all seriousness in response to your question, why respond at all, the answer I would argue is it is super important to respond. If you don't respond you leave exaggerated statements unchallenged and then people just ingest them without using any critical thinking. There are tons of examples of it happening in the US news media and it does change people's perspectives of what is happening in the world. If left unchallenged a casual reader would just assume that the sky was falling down in Ireland which couldnt' be further from the truth.
I used humor in my response. My use of a joke highlighted the absurdity and overblown nature of the original commenters statement and made a reader think exactly what does someone mean by "path to having a family". In actual fact, other people on this page are claiming it's too easy to have a family in Ireland what with all the free housing and welfare. So I'm pointing out the absurdity of the position, especially when it's just blasted out as fact without anything to back it up.
The characterization of mental wellbeing is cultural, not universal, and the methodology of collecting assessments is also sensitive to culture.
But it doesn't really matter because it wouldn't tell you much besides "ah, only Ireland has this problem I guess" or "whelp, this has been rising eveywhere" -- neither of which are especially practical conclusions when it comes to actually doing something about it.
Ireland's housing crisis: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/world/europe/ireland-hous...
Overall Ireland is in a bad spot and young folks with low work experience are the ones who will hurt the most.
I appreciate this may not have been the case (sorry OP), which is why I asked the above question.
Modified Domestic Demand, a better measure of the internal economy was up 0.5%, much better but will still be felt relative to the crazy highs Ireland reached the past few years.
The new OECD tax agreement means GDP and tax will remain under pressure (tax surplus forecasts are being revised downwards).
The Irish Central Bank doesn't use GDP anymore because our tax haven status distorts it so much.
"Ireland officially fell into recession last year as multinational exports slumped in the face of weaker global demand but the domestic economy still managed to grow, aided by stronger-than-expected consumer spending. Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures published on Friday show the economy as a whole shrank by 3.2 per cent in GDP (gross domestic product) terms in 2023. The CSO noted that the more globalised sectors of the economy, including the multinational-dominated “Industry” sector, contracted for the first time since 2013. This was “driven largely by a fall of 4.8 per cent in exports,” the agency said. The figures show the economy was effectively in a technical recession for the entirety of 2023 with GDP contracting in all four quarters. The domestic economy as measured by modified domestic demand (MDD), a more reliable barometer of domestic activity, grew by 0.5 per cent on the back of a 3.1 per cent increase in consumer spending. Consumer spending was underpinned by strong employment growth with figures published last week showing a record 2.71 million people are now employed in the economy. Incomes also rose in real terms by 3.3 per cent, the CSO said. Worryingly, however, MDD contracted by 0.4 per cent in the final quarter of last year on the back of a fall-off in private-sector investment. Another quarterly contraction would turn Ireland’s technical recession into a real one."
[1] - https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/03/01/recession-con...
I love my country and I was paid exceptionally but at every turn there is an extra overhead or increase in price accomodation is simply disgusting in Dublin, the weather is laughed about being a factor but when you're stuck indoors 80% of the year it has a big effect on your mental health over time.
Add to that the real growing problem of petty and violent crime in the city. While not out of control right now, it's unmanageable by the current Garda police force.
I hope it can figure things out, but as I see, Facebook conspiracy theorists and cookoos are starting to have political positions and it doesn't look like it will end well.
No kidding, I couldn't get my head around the recentish riots at all - child killed; immigrant comes to others' aid; everyone starts rioting; supposedly anti-immigrant, but involves mainly attacking police and burning public infrastructure...
Not that I'd support that kind of political action anyway, but at least make some kind of sense, do correctly targeted rioting?
Great example, that was a really embarrassing moment for me to see.
The riots were just a reason for the scum to act out and do whatever they wanted, under the guise of something reasonable. Gaslighting on a physical scale.
Really good example of how the country overall has changed for the worse.