Rip- off Ireland: The Whole Hog's 2004

As the year progressed we had reason to be grateful to the whole concept of “rip-off Ireland” for a number of reasons. Just as immigration had sparked waves of vile racism which proved that our self-created notion of Ireland as the land of the Hundred Thousand Welcomes was merely a case of collective self-delusion, so the Celtic Tiger has shown that we can handle neither mild poverty nor moderate wealth with any kind of dignity.

The rampant exhibitionism fuelled by our new-found affluence is nothing more than a mass version of those stories we used to sneer at, when British pools winners swore that their good fortune would not change their working-class lives, before embarking on ‘spend, spend, spend’ crusades that inevitably spiralled towards tabloid hell and a level of impoverishment they had failed to achieve even when they had no money at all.
And our Government has enthusiastically joined in the fun. Despite experiencing the best period of financial growth in the nation’s history, we have a health service that kills people, a shambolic educational system, an unchecked banking culture that steals from its customers at every opportunity (did you notice Permanent-TSB using a character from The Sopranos crime family in their current advertising campaign?), roads and railways that nearly reach Third World standard, Government Ministers who use lies and deceit to con votes out of us, two legal systems (one for the Government’s establishment cronies, the other for the rest of us) and a fantasist for a Taoiseach who by now probably imagines he’s a greater Communist than Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky combined.
There’s one consolation. The subject of “rip-off Ireland” has replaced traffic problems as the main topic of conversation in the drawing rooms and parlours of greater Dublin. Even Duffy (The Vampire Slayer) has joined in! No more must we listen to tales of how long it took Josie to get from Rathmines Town Hall to Portobello Bridge, but how you’d need a mortgage to buy a sandwich at the Heartbreak Hotel. Roll on the €5 pint!