80s paved way for today’s Ireland

Thirty years back, we had fewer skills and less education, yet the social divide wasn’t as severe, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

THERE is much talk of economic recovery, not all of it confined to the property pages and to the strange shiny alternative universe described in official press releases. This recovery is real, but fragile. It just feels a bit odd.

In central Dublin, the restaurants appear pretty full. Refurbishment work is getting going in the middle income areas, yet visitors to the capital comment on the large numbers of mainly young people, spreadeagled on the streets in sleeping bags, put there, in large part, by a social crisis born of family breakdown, drug addiction, and a growing housing crisis.