Ireland's Decline

Jo - What is heartbreaking is that this is not the first time! I remember as a child the real poverty, unemployment, every other child in my class in school disappearing from the roll-call as their family emigrated to England or America just to get work and survive, and the "Buy Irish" campaign - Tayto crisps, Jacobs biscuits, Irish butter rather than the cheaper imports satisfying the E.U. quotas etc. etc. The scandal then was subsidies to foreign manufacturers who undertook to employ local labour. The country was bulging with 'portacabin'-type hangars and the production-lines operated 24-hour-days........until the subsidy ended; then they packed up and left, leaving the 'workers' still unskilled, still jobless, still dependant.

It is disappointing that in over a decade of unprecedented prosperity investment and (even more importantly, thought and vision) have not been lavished on the infrastructure.
 
You seem to be suggesting that somehow we are worse off economically and socially now compared to the past. The facts would not tend to back this up. Or maybe I've misunderstood your point?
 
I took it that Marie is suggesting it could all happen again. Hopefully not but it's not beyond the realm of possibility either.