David McWilliams argues that Ireland, blessed with an annual avalanche of multinational tax revenue, ends up being the worst-run country in Europe:

Ireland’s population is much younger than the rest of Europe, therefore we should be spending less per head on health because the young don’t, typically, get sick. Yet Ireland’s per capita healthcare spend in 2024 was €7,394.85, the second highest in the EU. The EU average is €5,005.50. For all that money, Ireland’s health outcomes rank 15th out of 43 European countries. We should be number one or two.
The national children’s hospital, originally budgeted at €650 million for completion in 2020, reached €2.24 billion by 2025 — an overrun of over 220 per cent. Despite Ireland spending far more on healthcare than the European average, young Irish nurses and doctors are leaving the country in huge numbers for better conditions elsewhere. How can this happen? Surely the more we spend, the better the conditions for the essential workers?

It’s not just health care but transportation, housing, and just about everything else the government touches. Ireland, like the Gulf states, suffers from a resource curse. The Irish resource is its tax haven status, which enables oceans of money to cover over the fact that most of it is wasted and spent without proper oversight.