‘Best Place to Be’, the recent RTÉ 1 television series presented by Baz Ashmawy (RTÉ Player) had an interesting subplot running through its programmes.
Ostensibly about Irish people making a new life for themselves in various countries in Europe, the series also reflected on some of the reasons why many of these same people decided to up and leave Ireland.
Indeed, if the programme budget had stretched to include Australia you get the feeling that much the same message would also emerge about Irish people there.
One recurring theme in the series was ‘the conversation’ about what prompted people to move. Alongside the usual wish to experience a different country and culture there was also the persistent theme about how difficult it was to actually find a place to live in Ireland. Not surprisingly, the prospect of living upstairs in the box room in your twenties and thirties has been a major driver in the lives of Generation Z and their Millennial siblings.
In this way, one participant spoke about paying €560 to rent a room in a house share in Cork now paying €900 to rent an entire apartment in Turin in northern Italy. Another spoke about paying €850 for an apartment for one in Berlin. There were similar stories about the cost of childcare and a host of other things.
There was also the sense that Irish people who work hard for moderate wages are penalised at every turn for their efforts by the Irish State. Ireland, the so-called progressive and inclusive economic miracle, it would seem, expends more of its political capital in cherishing prized characteristics associated with progressive ideology than it does in looking after the ordinary Davids and Niamhs who get up for work every day.
It’s hardly surprising that Gen Z is angry. Not only do many of them look unlikely to ever live independently outside the homes in which they grew up in, all the signs are that they will also end up substantially poorer than their parents.
Neither does the area of pension provision look good for them – not alone are they more likely than their parents to be in precarious employment but added to that, there’s a bigger demographic issue looming related to a falling birth rate.
It’s certainly not for the want of hard work on the part of Gen Z. This generation has invested massively in education and third level education in particular. While their parents’ generation were settling in to work and starting to consider things like marriage and buying a house at twenty one, Gen Z is usually still only in the process of completing their first under graduate degree at that same age.
Indeed, one of the features of life for Gen Z is the near god-like status of third level education. This means that the undergraduate degree is now usually followed by the near-mandatory ‘masters’ degree. Many will now complete not one but several ‘masters’ before they ever get to hold down a full-time job. Emerging in to the jobs market in their mid-twenties, many will find that they are earning not a whole lot above the minimum wage.
One of the most insidious developments in recent times has been in the area of qualification inflation. The problem today is that, in terms of getting a job, a master’s degree is now probably worth what a primary degree was ten years ago. Twenty years previously the Leaving Cert would have unlocked the same type of job and thirty years before that, the Junior Cert or Inter Cert would have done much the same for you.
No-one is saying that education and particularly tertiary education does not have benefits but we also need to be realistic and recognise that many of the courses being offered at third level now benefit the institutions running them more than those paying to do them. In a word, third level education has become an industry in its own rite and the students and their paying parents are not always the main beneficiaries of that industry.
However, anger at their own parents’ generation for the situation in which they find themselves is surely misplaced. Their parents are also on a new generational journey pouring thousands of their savings into educational courses which do not always lead to a job.
They also end up housing and feeding their adult children into their twenties and thirties. If their adult children ever do manage to buy a house it is frequently with the help of the bank of mam and dad that they do so.
Neither is being angry with Ireland a reasonable response. Countries, on their own, do not produce things like unaffordable rents, precarious employment or the abiding sense that ability and hard work are punished at every turn.
That is the result of the particular political culture of a country. In the case of Ireland, the political culture since the 1990’s has been centre left on economic matters and liberal on social matters.
This is the political culture that has shaped the lives of Gen Z over the last 25 years as formerly conservative and right-leaning parties like Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have basically crossed the political spectrum and become versions of the Labour Party.
The thing about today’s Ireland is that, while it has evidently been a disaster for many, it has been very good for some people. Take Ireland’s socialist grandees – not only have they the satisfaction of seeing the country adopting without question their ideology but they are also the ones who have ended up with the six figure salaries as NGO heads or the gold-plated presidential pensions that are a multiple of the average industrial wage.
For Gen Z, talk about things like ‘choice’ and ‘equality’ seems particularly cruel given their situation in life and the fact that many of them look destined to spend their twenties and thirties living in the box room upstairs. Maybe, for Generation Z, it really is time for change after all.
Years of flawed government housing policies and failure for government to take action in a timely manner have contributed to this housing crisis.
However the most reckless action taken by this government was to bring tens of thousands of migrants into Ireland during a housing crisis filling up every spare room, driving property sale and rental prices ever higher. This was 100% under the governments control, they chose to do it.
The government chose to ignore the housing needs of Irish citizens and instead flooded the country with thousands of unskilled migrants, forever worsening the housing crisis and forcing Irish citizens out of their own country.
Believing in a ‘new Ireland’ tells me all I need to know about this author. How often do you renew your Ireland to make it new enough for yourself? Following the radical feminists who disparage dancing at the croossroads and the life of long ago and the decent people of that time, who had little but built up the Ireland the government is giving to the foreigner today. Their refrain is that Ireland was dark with no fun before their day to show that they brought fun and now a male follower has bought into that. ‘Countries on their own do not produce unaffordable rents’, says he. We are building madly but our supply is not able to keep up with the demands of immigration who are eating it up. They have priority and are getting guaranteed accomodation over the heads of the Irish. Supply not meeting demands give us unaffordable rents. Gen X will be further persecuted by the race quotas in employment. It is anti-Irish racism. Our current generation are directly responsible for the young Irish getting shafted. Nobody said boo to the anti-Irish racist policies that this government brought in. No national protests. Nothing. People are afraid of being called racist or being told they fear the foreigner, which shows how suppressed they are. Fear is what keeps them down, so keep them frightened, which will keep them from making demands for the Irish. That’s the policy of this government. One must abandon fear. The students themselves never protest now. They have been heavily indoctrinated into accepting the consensus of mass immigration and gender ideology. No independent thinking anymore. Where are the rebels? If you have a ‘few masters’ it means they are too easy to get and no good. Do an employable degree that’s hard. You’ll only need one. We must vote for independents and fledgling parties who are anti-immigration, if we are to keep up with the other European countries, who have swung to the right for the benefit of their own people and are closing their borders and deporting. Our young people have been shoved out of the way, by this government. We must turn that around urgently for their sake and give them respect and priority in their own country
Having seen genz examples here and globally, its quite obvious that they are the most useless breed of human in existence today. They came up with such terms as Dink’s and would run to the hills at the first sign of trouble. If modern living came to an abrupt end, they would starve to death.they stand for nothing and fight for nothing and have been endoctrined to do so. Selfishness is their mo. Baz is a trator and I personally find him repulsive Luke all rte staff.
3rd level Eduation is the biggest con trick pulled on Gen Z. Many of the degrees they attaIn are useless in the job marlet.They end up tippy- tapping a computer in some dead end job with no future, If they are lucky a position in the Parasitic NGO sector is open to them.
This is the area where they betray themselves and their fellow Irish with the extreme Liberal freak show fed to them at Uni.
Their self destructive promotion of Mass Migration and the undermining of the Family unit and Nation with the horse manure of diversity,inclusion,equity ,multicultchi. Critical Race Theory,White Privilege etc. has a ‘blow back effect’ that they realise too late. before they jump the immigration trail.
They have no idea they are just the ‘usless idiots, that are like Turkeys voting for Christmas..
They would best have trained in a useful trade ,such as Engineer, Plumber ,Carpenter.Electrician or Mason and earned big money and always in demand.
You are spot on there Daniel. College is just a tool to convince people who get sucked in to make them believe they can’t do it themselves and genz are the biggest dopes for following it. College and a real world job have little to do with each other in most cases and genz are incapable of using their own brains to think for themselves. Group think, the latest thing they are told to think, blind faith with no reasoning and cognitive dissonance is the order of the day with that lot because of no actual life skills and a massive insecurity taught to them by their parents who smothered them in cotton wool. Now we are left with a youth with the life skills and IQ no better than a freshly caught haddock and then they have the Gaul to push their Marxist rubbish on us only to shout abusive lies or run like cowards when challenged. Being called all the names in the world by that lot is a badge of honour.
That’s unfair James. Some are like you said but a hell of a lot aren’t. When you come across the bad ones it is your duty to give them a shove in the right direction instead of just moaning about how the young have gone to the dogs.
Who said I haven’t and its completely fair and true what I said and I know this because I have spoken to these people all over the world. One example would be a guy in the USA who supported Marxism openly on mastodon. I asked him what he thought of the patriot act, he said it was not good but still supported Marxism. They are incompatible. He refused to bow. I sat at the dinner table the other night with another and he could not believe that people are capable of doing things that the politicians are doing in the back ground. I spent two solid years on x posting to these clowns the truth with evidence and they did exactly as described above. Most of the youth of today are in their little liberal bubbles and staying there because its safe. The only thing that will wake them up is an illegal immigration kick in the teeth but it will be too late by then. They are dumb as a brick.
Additionally James, the evidence is most of them don’t vote because they don’t see the point and none of them protest against the kakistocracy we have because insta and tik tok are far more important. They might miss love island as well. The only shove in the right direction the youth of today will listen to is their bubbles bursting and all out tyranny. They might stop staring at their phones then .
So you are saying I put my own mother in the mother and baby home in Dublin and turned the other way? You truly are pond scum and should really be kept as far away from technology as possible.
Using the suffering of people like my mother for point scoring only highlights what a complete and utter sociopath you are but then you compare genz cowardice to fffg and rcc human rights abuses to reinforce your ego shows how completely unhinged and dislodged from any for of reality, empathy and any for of human emotion. Satan has a nice place next to kissenger for you bud.
And happy trolling in 2024 Shaz
Very true ..
The pernicious myth of the inherent value of third level/university education is just that, a myth.
Degrees that lead to professional qualifications still result in well paid employment, and always did, because they develop useful skills that have real value.
Other degrees do not necessarily provide useful skills, in fact the enormous expansion of non-technical/non-professional degrees courses to cater for the delusional belief in the myth of the inherent value of any degree has included creation of many degrees that are intrinsically worthless.
Back in the days before free education ad mass entry to university, BA and other mickey-mouse degree graduates did get good well paying lobs. But that was not because of their degrees, but because of family connections and networks. Unfortunately, this fact was not considered when elevating the degree to its present mythical status.
Meanwhile, apprenticeships and trades jobs have been ignored.
My son is doing Engineering. I’m happy to pay for that. If he had wanted to do an apprenticeship for a trade, I would have been happy with that too.
But if he had wanted to do a degree with “Studies” in the title, I would have said: “Off you go, you’ll get nothing from me, pay for it yourself, and don’t complain to me when you can’t get a good, well paying job.”
This comment defames those of us who got genuine primary degrees in two modern languages, in the past and jobs to go with them, without any pull. And in much harder times. Twice in this article, the generation that went before have been denigrated by two male blackguards.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to describe Ireland as centre left on economics. Lowest corporation tax in Europe after all.
We have extremely high personal tax levels and extremely poor public services. Leftist taxation and extremely parsimonious public services. Let me qualify that this only applies to the Irish. If you are an international protection scammer then you get as of right Housing, food money health care and education as well as the special protection of the state and its organs. in short you get what the Irish never had.
Exactly. The Irish are strangers in their own country.
Well a centre left economy would have high personal tax levels and good quality public services. So Ireland ticks the first box but not the second. If there’s high personal tax levels but public services are bad then that indicates bad management of government finances which is not a left or right issue but an incompetence issue.
Take for example housing in Ireland. There are much lower levels of social housing than there is in Britain France or Germany. There is much more private property as a percentage of overall houses and a high number of people paying rent to private landlords. Again that ls more a right wing economy than left wing economy.
Ireland has the most income redistribute personal tax and welfare system in the OECD, which is at a level that would make even quitisential Social Democracies blush (https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/ireland-has-eu-s-most-progressive-tax-system-study-finds-1.4148368).
Ireland’s corporate tax rate is also not the lowest in Europe, I believe it’s Hungary (9%). And, our corporate tax policy isn’t ideologically motivated (i.e. it’s not because we’re extreme capitalists), it’s driven by pragmatism – we’re generating enormous revenue and we’re not going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Firstly, Ireland’s pre-redistributive income spread (aka inequality) is influenced by a high proportion of high salary multinational jobs that are incongruent with the underlying economy. Removing these jobs would significantly reduce Ireland redistributive income spread (inequality) but would be to nobody’s benefit.
Also, a highly progressive tax/welfare system, like Ireland’s (the most redistributive in the OECD), predetermines higher pre-redistributive income inequality. Higher welfare expenditure, funded by taxes on high earners, encourages disengagement from the labour market at the lower end of the salary scale (welfare competes with lower paid jobs), leading to higher pre-redistributive income inequality. i.e. the extreme level of redistribution in Ireland is a significant cause of higher income inequality before welfare distribution.
Saying the housing market in Ireland is a free market is also stretching credibility in the extreme; thousands of landlords are exiting the market while rents and returns on investment are at an all time high; this is hardly the characteristic of a “free market” and it’s not surprising the landlords are citing government regulations, tax and market interference as a reason for exiting the market. The level of State engagement in the housing market is completely inconsistent with a free market.
You also mentioned health; 90% of health spending in Ireland is in the public system and we get an exceptionally weak return on our enormous investment. Irish health expenditure compares very favourably to many peer countries that have excellent public health systems. Ireland’s exceptionally poor performance on health is not due to market forces; it’s caused by maladministration, poor management and weak cost controls in our public administrative system.
Bottom line, the Irish State is very good at generating revenues but very bad at spending money and the solution to Ireland’s problems will not be found in a copy of Das Kapital.
God bless.
So it’s the second highest corporation tax in Europe.
Again that is not exactly a classic example of a centre left economy.
You say the author doesn’t have clue. Let’s not pretend you’re an economic expert jack.
There was a housing crisis in Ireland. Supply of housing could not meet demand. Rents were very high.
And then the government chooses to bring in an extra 110000 making the housing crisis far far worse.
When people point this out you call them racist. Even though it’s just an obviously bad economic choice by government.
I didn’t say immigration caused the problem. I said mass immigration has made the problem much worse. Deal with the words I say rather than what you imagine I said.
For the government to invite in over 100000 extra people into the country when there was already a serious issue with a pack of housing was so stupid I still can’t quite believe. The government choose to do this.
Demand now massively outstrips supply to the point where this problem may not be resolvable.
It’s very possible the future for Ireland is a return to the past. Irish people will have to leave Ireland in large numbers in order to find affordable housing.
When people point this out they are called racist by the useful idiots who repeat the governments far right nonsense. The far right narrative was adopted by the government to cover up what was one of the most disastrous see economic choices any Irish government has ever made.
It’s so simple.
There was a shortage of houses.
Supply could not meet demand.
It was a crisis.
Then the government brings in an extra 100000 people into the country and turn a housing crisis into a catastrophe.
There will never be enough houses now to cover the amount of people in the country. The number of people on the streets will rise and rise in the years to come.
Now it’s your turn to reply calling me a racist
You’re a troll there’s really no point talking to you
Reply to MMG: ‘Back in the day, BA, mickey mouse degree, good well paying jobs, family connections’!!!!! I, like others, was paying 60p in the £1 income tax when on only the third salary increment, to build up the Ireland you have today. My primary degree is in Irish and French, high linguistic competence, both oral and written and a wealth of literature in both languages. I have other post grad qualifications and first arts English, but that primary degree was the best thing I ever did. It has given me an intangible intrinsic wealth. It set off an unexpected and unimagined mental process of awareness and engagement, that I have been engaged in ever since and it’s the standpoint from where I judge the world. It has given me the power to be, rather than to do, something unplanned and that I was unaware of until it happened, which is the ultimate goal of education, that is often unspecified. The Dublin student politics of the time, a major influence too. It’s a degree that requires application and the ability to see it through. I got work based on merit. No pull. My father knew no politicians, he only cursed them and wouldn’t know the difference between an Irish book and a French book and neither would many of them, either then or now. To tell me that my degree is mickey mouse is a failed attempt to steal my past and my whole world.
“Riddled with errors the most egregious being that Ireland was left of centre economically”. Ireland has the most income redistributive tax and welfare system in the OECD (https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/ireland-has-eu-s-most-progressive-tax-system-study-finds-1.4148368). Progressive and redistributive taxation is a defining characteristic of our economy, which is fundamentally “left of centre economically”; these redistributive policies are advocated by every political party. Even quintessentially Social Democratic countries in Scandinavia have less income redistributive policies that Ireland.
Also, suggesting that our housing market is run on a “neoliberal free market basis” is testing credibility – government interference in and regulation of the housing market is extreme. This is reflected in the actions of residential landlords who have abandoned the rental market en-masse at a time when rents and their return on investments have never been higher; they’re citing excessive regulations and government policy, which are hardly the characteristics of a free market (https://www.irishexaminer.com/property/residential/arid-41038079.html).
Every generation says “In my day….” as if one group is superior to another. This article is about GenZ but its as applicable to millenials (a category I fall under). I finished my BA at 21 in 2013 and my daughter was born the same year. Since then I worked and did do post grads at night. Because I have 4 children Central Bank regulations prevented me getting a mortgage (instead sinking almost 100k into rent).
There are a lot of people I know in worse situation but it is sickening that we vilify one another online instead of addressing the problem. Consecutive governments have made terrible decisions that have cut away at the Irish public.
My family fought for the country in Easter 1916, War of Independence, everything. They would weep at the state the country is in. Just because technology has moved us forward we think its acceptable to have an atrocious health, education and housing system. I’ve never moved away from Ireland, and I defend it for the many great things about living here (the people, sport, culture, history) but there is a lot to be ashamed of. We should be ashamed because we refuse to demand better, instead blaming one another and making excuses for our own lack of action.