We’re in a bad state? Just think of the ’80s

WHEN I finished college and began my search for a job in the late 1980s, Ireland was a different place.

We had been through years of high unemployment, our public finances were a mess and we had very high tax and interest rates. In my first job I worked for £1.50 per hour — no minimum wage then.

Now think of all the improvements in the past 20 years: new motorways, tunnels, bridges, streetscapes and a public transport system with new trains, bus fleets and stations.