Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger
Written in the wreckage; angry but specific about tax breaks, planning and regulatory capture.
Summary
Fintan O'Toole, a columnist at the Irish Times, wrote this immediately after the Irish banking collapse as a political indictment. His argument is that the crash was not an accident of global finance but the outcome of a specific Irish political culture that he traces back decades.
The elements he identifies are clientelism, in which politicians deliver planning permissions and favours to individuals rather than governing; the corruption of the planning system, documented by the tribunals of inquiry that examined payments to politicians for rezoning decisions; the tax regime that encouraged property development through reliefs and exemptions; the regulatory culture in which the financial regulator declined to act against banks; and the ideological transformation in which a country that had been poor came to believe its own boom narrative. He gives detailed attention to the relationships between developers, bankers and politicians, and to specific figures including Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern.
The economic analysis of the property bubble and the banking guarantee of September 2008 is thinner than the political material; readers wanting that should go to Donovan and Murphy's The Fall of the Celtic Tiger. O'Toole writes as a polemicist and the book is angry, written for an Irish audience with the tribunal findings in mind. It is a period document of the moment when the country's self-image collapsed, and it is the best account of the political culture that produced the crash.
Key takeaways 7
- Ireland's planning system was corrupted by payments for rezoning decisions, which the tribunals of inquiry documented in detail.
- Tax reliefs for property development directed investment into buildings the country did not need.
- Clientelist politics rewarded delivering favours to constituents rather than governing, which left no constituency for regulation.
- The financial regulator declined to act against banks whose lending concentration was visible in their published accounts.
- O'Toole argues that Irish elites came to believe the boom narrative they had constructed for external consumption.
- The bank guarantee of September 2008 transferred private bank losses to the state without any assessment of their size.
- Ireland's rapid enrichment removed the scepticism that had previously constrained its political class.
Who should read it
Readers who want the political and cultural account of the Irish crash rather than the financial mechanics, from a contemporaneous critic.
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