Key Features and Vulnerabilities of the Irish Growth Model

Ireland’s economic and social model is a mixed bag. There is clearly greater overall prosperity in recent decades, reflected in doubled employment, rising employment rates, and increased incomes. But there are also significant problems, reflected in high levels of market and disposable income inequality, a range of major deficits in infrastructure and services, and a widespread uneasiness about the basis of that prosperity. This article considers some of the structural elements that underpin this combination of features of Ireland’s ‘model’ of economic and social organisation, emphasising how these two dimensions are inevitably and deeply intertwined.