Why Ireland Must Rethink Its Economic Future; Fast

This week we talk to Matthew Ruddy, a young Dublin entrepreneur who did everything right - built his first business at 17, worked alongside the lads at Dogpatch Labs. Except he's now living in Brisbane, not Dublin. Matthew's story captures what's happening to an entire generation. These aren't traditional emigrants heading to London building sites, they're highly educated risk-takers who desperately want to stay home but can't afford to take entrepreneurial risks when rent costs two grand a month. The statistics are staggering: home ownership among 25-34 year olds has fallen by 48% since the mid-90s; the highest decline in the world. This housing catastrophe is causing a mental health crisis among young adults in English-speaking countries, with Ireland leading the pack. It's creating a vicious cycle where young talent either takes safe multinational jobs or emigrates entirely, starving Irish startups of the people they need. Meanwhile, we're left wondering where all the young entrepreneurs have gone. They're everywhere but home. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Not so fast! We unpack the surprise EU-US trade deal that has everyone shouting sellout but we see it differently. In this episode, we take a deeper look at what really went down in the Trump-triggered tariff negotiations. The headlines scream defeat: Europe folds, Trump wins, 15% tariffs slapped on all EU goods while the US gets full access to the European market. But is that the full story? We break it down, the EU runs a $200 billion trade surplus with the US. So why would they agree to this? Because sometimes in poker, the smartest move is folding a bad hand to fight another day. We also lift the lid on the civil war brewing within Europe: the Commission vs. the member states, nationalism vs. federalism, free trade idealism vs. geopolitical realism. Germany wants to protect its cars. France its booze. Ireland? Our pharma sector’s now hanging in the balance. We talk street-fighting Trump vs. rulebook Europe, why this deal might actually be good news for investment in Ireland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we take you back to the final years of Yugoslavia, a country that exploded into one of the bloodiest wars Europe has seen since WWII. We trace how ethnic tensions, decades of suppressed rivalries, and opportunistic leaders tore the region apart, while Europe watched on, paralysed. We explore how the Serb army launched brutal assaults across Croatia and Bosnia, committing acts of ethnic cleansing that left over 100,000 Bosnians dead, often at the hands of their own neighbours. For years, the West hesitated. But after a dramatic shift in Washington, the U.S. stepped in, arming the Croats, launching air strikes, and ultimately brokering the Dayton Accords to end the war. In this episode, we follow the story from Vukovar to Sarajevo, from Belgrade backroom deals to Clinton’s White House. We explain how Croatia won the war but lost nearly a million people to emigration, how Serbia suffered the worst hyperinflation ever recorded, and how Slovenia quietly became the EU’s success story, set to overtake the UK in GDP per capita within five years. We also reflect on the strange persistence of empire: Russia still backs Serbia, Turkey stands with Bosnia, and the West never really forgot its favourites. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we dive headfirst into one of Europe’s most brutal and under-discussed chapters: the collapse of Yugoslavia. Live from Croatia, where the scars of that war still linger, and where, 30 years on, the economic, political, and human fallout continues to echo across the continent. We explore how hyperinflation, sparked by debt-fuelled mismanagement and ethnic tension, helped tear the country apart. At one point, Yugoslavia’s army was the largest in Europe. Today, its people make up the single largest intra-EU migrant group. In Ireland alone, over 40,000 Croats were issued PPS numbers in the last five years. We walk you through the tangled roots of nationalism, the rotating presidency that doomed a federation, and how the ghost of Tito, who told Stalin to feck off in 1946, still haunts the region. We also talk Jamie Dimon, who popped up in Dublin last week declaring “Europe has lost,” and we break down what that means in GDP terms: 25 years ago, US and EU GDP per capita were neck-and-neck—now the US is 25% ahead. We trace that back to 1995 and ask: What if Yugoslavia was the first warning shot? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the podcast, we take on the two biggest issues shaping our future: immigration and housing. We begin with the looming threat of U.S. tariffs, which could hit by August 1st. A 30% levy would be catastrophic for Ireland, the most open economy in the world, with nearly €600 billion in imports and exports annually. While China retaliates in unison, Europe squabbles over wine, cars, and Big Tech. Meanwhile, Ireland, so dependent on U.S. multinationals, stands massively exposed. We then dive into the far knottier issue: immigration. Between April 2022 and 2023, 141,000 immigrants arrived in Ireland. Only 30,000 houses were built in the same period. You don’t need a PhD to see the problem, demand has tripled, while supply has collapsed. House prices are up 7% in the last three months alone, now approaching half a million euros. Construction is down, despite a 47% increase in government spending since COVID. We break the numbers down: of the 141,000, roughly 90,000 arrived via active government policy; visas, asylum, humanitarian aid. With only two people per home on average, we’d need to build 80,000 houses per year to keep up. We’re building less than half that. We’re not arguing against immigration, we need it. But policy without planning leads to crisis. If we don’t start managing immigration with data and foresight, we’ll drift into chaos.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.