The Strange, Broken Economics of Ireland

Audio Editing by Donovan Bullen
Editing by José Gámez
Motion Graphics by Vincent de Langen
Writing, Thumbnail Design, and Direction by Evan

This includes a paid sponsorship which had no part in the writing, editing, or production of the rest of the video.

Video from Getty Images
Maps provided by MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3
Select footage from the AP Archive

[TobiaszGans]

I came to Ireland for college, stayed, worked and married. What drove me to come back to the country is that despite earning money just under the second income tax bracket, I was unable to find and afford to rent an appartament where I could live privatly with my wife. All professionals I worked alongside with are just renting rooms for crazy amounts of money. For the last year I lived 2h comute one way and still payed 1850 Eur for a scruffy, poorly isolated 1 bedroom appartament with a psycho landlord. I learned to love Ireland, but it seemed to hate me.

I'm Irish, born and reared, but when you said "Ireland is the only English speaking country in the EU" - I genuinely had to pause and think; is that true!! 😅🤣

[danielarchila]

I lived in Ireland for a year. Moved there for a position in a big tech. After reading the GDP and growth, I expected a thriving nation, and Dublin on a growth course. What I found was a crumbling society with barely any infrastructure in contrast to other Western European economies. Dublin became a city that preyed on big-tech workers and ostracized locals by monopolizing and inflating the housing market to a ridiculous degree so that only desperate migrants with high tech salaries would agree to the leases while the average Irish citizen was priced out of their own city or forced to live in ridiculous conditions. Not to mention it is common for foreign students to share a moldy and unkempt house with 40 other people. It was abundantly clear the country was hanging by a thread relying on the big tech.

[DarWren]

Irish, 31, studied and worked my whole adult life. I struggle to pay rent.

[KarolinaWojtczak]

Having lived in Ireland for a decade i can say without the shadow of a doubt that the whole "second wealthiest nation" thing is a mirage. The housing crisis makes it so that you can be wealthy enough to live in a 500k house that is actually an old 2 bedroom 1 bathroom with poor insulation and no private garden a 40 min commute from town, you're still living in a house worth half a million, and PAYING for it! But really are you wealthy or is the economic state of affairs forcing you to live like that, cause I'm sure your money would be worth a lot more elsewhere.

[fabism]

Interestingly Apple does not have a single apple store in the Republic of ireland. I assume there is some tax reason for this. There is one in Belfast and every other medium sized EU/UK City but not Dublin or Cork where they have a facility for over 40 years. So much for serving their Irish "community".
This is a good video and true. People on the ground are struggling with enormous house prices and a tech generation with a lot of money living beside the 'real' economy of teachers, nurses etc. The length and dept of the connections means Ireland is quite entwined in these companies. Many execs and others have lived here and are from here and the work ethic is more American than European. No unions in these big tech companies. So beyond tax, they have a lot of reasons to stay, location, work force, language, culture, connectivity to the US and a mutual understanding of our people. Irish companies employ as many people in the US as US companies employ here for the moving of profits means Ireland is making fortunes from wealth earned elsewhere. We are still too dependant on those few companies and this remains a problem. When you have your hand in the lions mouth, you stroke its back. The wealth illusion is proving painful for many who can't find a way to leave home and it is coming to a crux with elections this year largely about housing.

[Arclight]

Ireland is listed as rich but Irish people barely have wage levels to match increasing cost of goods and services and its near impossible to ever buy a home. Its increasingly difficult to even afford rental costs and the increasing inward migration of refugees is helping create a further demand for housing that just cannot be met. The massive centralisation of everything in Ireland on Dublin also absolutely does not help.

[aGirts]

I can’t believe a big YouTuber did a thing on check the box treasury regulations 😂

As a US tax lawyer, all I have to say is FINALLY. Because this is only scratching the surface of the shenanigans and the games you can play by separating entity form for corporate/liability and tax purposes

[biggeordiecliffordd]

The really sad thing is that this 'creative accounting' impacts negatively on ordinary Irish citizens.A GDP of €104k per head compared with a mean gross salary of €45k distorts all economic planning, including contributions to the EU budget. The influx of a small but highly paid expat community results in cost of living for all increasing, especially house prices & rents. Yeah, the government gains, but the multinational corporations are by far the biggest beneficiaries.

[MrJonyish]

Never look at GDP per capita only look at Median Personal Income is my rule! If money doesn’t react the people it can leave the country as quick as it came!

[steelpainter]

I'm a Irish mental health professional and educator. These headline economic figures can make for Kafkaesque reading when you work on the frontline in these services, which are rapidly disintegrating. Schools and hospitals have been in a state of permanent crisis for about 15 years with immense waiting lists and overcrowding, but the last three years have been truly shocking. The worst of the worst has been in children's services. In certain parts of the country, there are effectively no paediatric mental health services - and by that I don't mean overly long waiting lists or under resourced facilities under constant pressure. I mean nothing - if an individual under 18 has a mental health crisis or is displaying indications of a serious disorder or developmental issue, the best they might get is an appointment in four or five YEARS. If they are not that lucky, they may be told that they are simply not a candidate for mental health services. That this is happening in a nation that allegedly is one of the wealthiest in the world and currently has a budget surplus is profoundly frustrating to contemplate.

[MorganWallenManagement-tduq]

I'm interested in investing, but I'm not sure where to start. Do you have any advice or contacts who can help me out?

[HarshTekie]

I watched two companies I work for in the past, both listed and ranked, do this exact tax cheating in Ireland. And it is tax cheating. Only difference is when you do it, you can go to jail like Capone, and when a company does it, they are rewarded.

[mundhiralmamari]

I have lived in Dublin about 5 years and saw the inflated housing market, it was a nightmare that led to homeless crisis

[StevenEwaldGFX]

"thousands left the country in search of greener pastures" lol

[redmage.]

I am an irish person suffering because of the housing crisis here. I have been looking for a place to rent since November last year and still have not found a place. On Ireland's leading property website, where the majority of private landlords and lettings agent's do business, there is just under 2000 properties available for rent in the entire country. Competition is incredibly stiff. It is very disheartening. I am lucky to have a roof over my head, there are those in much more desperate need than me.

[madman]

Second highest Highest GDP in Europe with rampant homelessness and poverty. It's honestly shameful as an Irishman to see what's happening in my homeland.
Most if not everyone I know that are my age either have emigrated, are in the process of it or at least have it as a goal, this country has very little prospects for a mid 20 year old. Rent has skyrocketed with police (Garda) regularly assisting if not entirely carrying out illegal evictions (Look up spicebag's painting in relation to this).

Most if not all socializing happens with alcohol involved, don't get me wrong I love a few pints here and there but when it's multiple nights out a week on the sauce it gets very repetitive.

Our health services while staffed with some of the most hard working and talented professionals is so woefully mismanaged it's sickening. Regular 10-20+ hour waits in A&E to be seen for symptoms ranging from small afflictions to symptoms causing serious concern. The government have been trying to build a children's hospital for years costing upwards of 2 Billion Euro and from reports is under-equipped and in need of securing more funding for completion, is honestly quite astounding how blatantly mismanaged the whole situation is and yet nothing is done as the health minister is 'one of the lads'.

The majority of our towns and cities have become centered on tourism and catering to that market as much as possible so Airbnb and the like are rampant again amplifying the strain on the housing market.

It's all just quite depressing to be honest. I want to sing the praises of my countrymen as honestly they're a great bunch of lads, it is true that you'll never beat the Irish, there's just a unique side to us that make us likeable for want of a better explanation however that fact makes it all the harder because it feels like the younger generation inevitably have to leave it all behind to find better opportunities.

Great vid man, A Chára, P.

Ps. The Celtic Tiger refers to the period of the early 2000s before the recession in 08'

[pedclarkemobile]

As a lay observer living in Dublin, I see the construction sector booming, lots of work, lots of cranes throughout the city & suburbs. In cities there is work for anyone in low skilled work for €15 per hour. At 40 hours per week that should be a decent income. The cost of housing is so high that it’s common for people to spend 50% and more on rent. In that situation it is near impossible today save money and try to buy a property.
Many young graduates go to greener pastures; AUS, US, CAN or GB.
Meanwhile migrant arrival numbers have been high for some time (very high as a proportion of total population, even when compared with other EU nations). Public services have limited capacity, homelessness is steadily rising. We cannot house our current population, the construction sector is pretty much running at capacity (relying heavily on EU migrant labour; high skilled and low skilled workers). The number of new residential units is nowhere near demand, it takes long term planning to promote trades in schools and build a competent workforce, there is a shortage of skilled tradesmen currently. Maybe we can incentivise young male migrants to take up apprenticeships and become the builders we need.

Ireland is headed for some difficult decisions, we cannot continue to expand the population at triple the rate that we expand the housing stock.

One of the few sectors that is wealth creating is agriculture. Irish beef fetches good prices internationally. Our dairy is of the highest quality too. Most of what is produced is exported, bringing in valuable € to balance trade.
Recently government policy and mumblings have been increasingly negative toward the beef & dairy producers because of methane emissions. Talk of culling cows to drastically reduce herd numbers and imposing carbon taxes on the farmers.

I worry that our elected leaders are not just self serving weasels (as any of us would expect) but they are also incompetent… they are busy texting while at the wheel during a slow motion car crash.

I don’t pretend to have the solution, just lots of questions.

[sambarrett]

How can they claim they make key decisions in Bermuda when Tim Cook works in Silicon Valley and they print “designed by Apple in California” on every product

[Thing-vcqm]

It's a nice introduction to transfer pricing. From there you can only start to see how deep the rabbit hole goes as you deeper into it.