You say, "Nope, you're fueling this." Why? How are they fueling it?

Well, the government, uh, the, the, the thing is, our government is a, uh, it's a fiscal junkie, and th- they're down in, in skid row, uh, every morning, injecting themselves with corporate tax receipts they're getting from Apple, uh, and the other large American nat- multinationals.

And that puts the Irish government in a completely different position from the governments of its EU colleagues, in that we have plentiful tax revenues, whereas if, you know, if you look at Andy Burnham n- next door in Britain, he's really getting squeezed now.

He's, he's trying to put a favorable gloss on him coming in as prime minister, but he's very, he's immediately run into the, the constraint, "You don't have any money to spend on anything, Andy.

So you can give us lots of pious talk and lots of nice gestures, but you actually can't fund anything significant." By contrast, our government, it's gra- you know, it's like somebody who, who, who, who's up in the Alp- the Alps in, in the middle of, of, of winter, and the, our government has been hit by an avalanche of, of tax revenues.

And it's got more money than it knows how to spend, and as a consequence, it's-

So we're not seeing an increase in salaries for the average workers anymore to match this cost of living.

Yep.

Where do your worries begin?

Well, I think there's a contrast between what's happening to the overall economy, which is growing strongly and very healthily, And a contrast between that and the situation of the individual worker.

So the outcomes for the individual worker, their wages are growing, but so are costs.

And central banks reacted to COVID by a massive injection of money into the system.

And that has led to a very big increase in inflation.

So in real after cost increase terms, the outcomes for individual workers haven't been so good.

And then the other problem is that there's been a massive growth in the population, mainly fueled by immigration.

So a US stock crash, by its virtue, because the stock market is so inflated at the moment, it would be catastrophic, would it not? If we get a burst there, it's going to be one hell of a burst.

Where do your worries begin? Well, I think

there's a contrast between what's happening to the overall economy, which is growing strongly and very healthily, And a contrast between that and the situation of the individual worker.

So the outcomes for the individual worker, their wages are growing, but so are costs.

And central banks reacted to COVID by a massive injection of money into the system.

And that has led to a very big increase in inflation.

So in real after cost increase terms, the outcomes for individual workers haven't been so good.

And then the other problem is that there's been a massive growth in the population, mainly fueled by immigration.

So a US stock crash, by its virtue, because the stock market is so inflated at the moment, it would be catastrophic, would it not? If we get a burst there, it's going to be one hell of a burst.

Do you believe him? Is he right?

I think there's a measure, an element of truth in what he says, but I think Elon Musk would be better-advised play, kind of a neutral referee who's in control of Twitter than to be running onto the pitch, giving opposing players a knee in sensitive areas, which he's doing.

He's too loud for his own good, I think.

If I were a shareholder in his operations, I'd be telling him to do it.

If you look at Michael O'Leary in Ryanair, for example, Michael O'Leary has very few comments publicly that you read the subtext, they're not supportive of Ryanair's wider operations.

He's carefully considered in what he says.

But I think Musk is just too unrestrained and a bit extreme in the terminology he's using for his own good.

the

To you first, Cormac, what do you think of the government's approach this year?

I'd agree very much with what Ciara just said there, that the budget is essentially aimed much more at people who aren't working than at people who are working.

even though we have such a large worker shortage that we're having to import tens of thousands of workers each year.

So I think the government is not taking a sensible overall approach to looking at the jobs market.

What would be a sensible approach to looking at the jobs

We also, we should, to give the full picture, I do want to bring in Owen as well, to give the full picture, we also have, and you're talking about bringing in workers and the need to do that, we have very, very low rates of tax for workers who are on 20, 25, 30,000, much lower than any other country in the EU and much lower than the UK.

We may, but that's not where the pressure in the jobs market is most acute.

And the bottom line is we have been utterly dependent on tax receipts from American multinationals over the last decade.