I just wanted to agree with your argument that the only way to make the progress is by effective parliamentary democracy. i.e one which is representative, efficient, transparent, accountable, and where integrity is a core value. But I think building that democracy will require a cultural foundation which appears to be absent: i.e people think Bertie is lying or corrupt but still vote for him etc. Plus the vicious circle - in order for the system to be revectored to represent those who are empowered the latter have to vote and vote smartly. But they won’t vote, or simply vote along parish pump of clientelist lines, because the ’system’ as they see it, does’nt really work for them. But yes, I suppose we have to start somehwere.

The problem, I think, with ideas around working class in Ireland, is that the usage and terms of debate have been set by the far-left and the right-wing conservative middle class. to talk of even social democracy is to be alligned with Joe higgins in this country. and joe higgins would call me a sell-out.

I’m talking about the establishment of a genuine social democracy in Ireland, on par with the Eurpoean model. mixed economy, liberal social agenda. Decent public services in education, health, transport, and pensions.

In order for that to happen, you need a parliamentary deomcracy run on class lines cos, guess what, that’s how capitalist economies work. class lines.

As for the idea that the Irish people are “congenitally aspirational” and “wasn’t it the backbone of our politics for about 400 years?” the answer to that is, well, no.

McWilliams might be an annoying ‘celebrity intellectual’ but he is smack on the money when he brings the generational aspect of the power structure into play. The people who benefitted from the boom were by and large people who had assets before the economy ignited - people in their late 20s and upwards who naturally had houses or small businesses set up by 1997 with no cognition of the economic transformation that was to take place - what McWilliams terms ‘accidental millionaires’, but also a large group of people who benefitted more modestly but still quite significantly as the value of their assets rocketed.

These are the people the government and for the most part of the mainstream media have been representing for the past 10 years, the people who’ve been telling us we’ve never had it so good. If/when the economy turns they will still be relatively unscathed; those who were trailing in their wake, the ones that have been trying to clamber up the ladder for the past few years and putting up with spiralling house prices and inflation will be left wondering what they had been chasing all along. The big shame will be that the social services that should have been put in place to lead us out of the boom have not.

I think it would be a huge omission to discuss class along the lines of where people were born or how much they earn without bringing age into it. It’s not just a case of class being some identifying mark that defines you from birth to death, but whether you should trust anybody over 40.

Somehow, I think we have been here before.