CRISIS OF CRUELTY SERIES: The Price of Survival

The Cost of Living Crisis

If you believe the branding, Ireland is mostly green with a bit of black and white.

But I’m not here to split the G.

Multinationals queuing up to call Dublin home, glossy export stats and full employment figures mask a deeper rot. And yet – more and more of us are cold, hungry, and hanging on by our bitten nails.

How can this be? Here’s my take:

This isn’t a cost of living crisis. It’s a cost of surviving crisis. And survival, in this rigged game, has become a luxury some of us can’t afford.

This is cruelty dressed up as your competence.

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com

Evidence: The Numbers They Don’t Want You to Add Up

Let’s talk facts. Because if there’s one thing cruel systems hate, it’s receipts:

Ireland’s inflation hit 9.2% in 2022, the highest in two decades. While it’s stabilised slightly, essential costs – food, rent, electricity – remain sky-high.
One in five Irish households experienced energy poverty last winter (ESRI, 2023). That’s families choosing between heating and eating.
Rents have doubled in a decade, with the average monthly rent outside Dublin now over €1,500. And in the capital? Good luck under €2k.
Meanwhile, Ireland is ranked among the richest countries per capita globally due to GDP distortion, thanks to our tax haven-lite setup for multinationals. Apple pays 0.005% tax. You pay USC on your second job just to cover the shopping.

The Rich Get Champagne. You Get Shame

This isn’t about individual greed – it’s systemic hoarding.

How is it possible that Ireland has more billionaires per capita than Japan, and yet our public services are collapsing? Because those at the top extract – from our labour, our land, and our homes – while paying lip service to hardship.

The UK shows us the blueprint. Austerity dressed up as virtue. You’ll remember:

Tory MPs claiming £3,000 expenses for energy bills while telling pensioners to wear jumpers.
Jacob Rees-Mogg mocking food bank users as needing “better budgeting.”
Boris Johnson lying through his teeth about “levelling up” while his pals raked in millions from dodgy PPE contracts.

And here’s the kicker: Successive Irish governments copy the same playbook, word for word, with a bit of Gaeilge thrown in for flavour.

Leo says, “We can’t help everyone.”
But we can give €1.3 billion in tax breaks to landlords?
Micheál says, “Everyone must do their part.”
Except corporations, who legally dodge billions in tax every year.
Paschal says “We’re managing the economy responsibly.”
But people are literally going blind waiting for cataract surgery in public hospitals.

The Conflict? It’s Not Broken, It’s Working Exactly as Intended

This isn’t a glitch in the system. This is the system.

Built to keep you scrambling while the already-rich hoover up public funds, buy up housing stock, and convince you to blame yourself for not budgeting better.

It’s not that there isn’t enough to go around. It’s that those who have too much keep taking more, and the government lets them.

Not just lets them – enables them, with policy, tax codes and media narratives that frame poverty as a personal failing and wealth as moral superiority.

Resistance: What We Do When We Stop Playing Along

You don’t fix cruelty by begging it to be kinder. You resist it. Loudly. Collectively. Creatively.

Practical Resistance Strategies:

Join or support mutual aid networks – hyperlocal solidarity that gets food, fuel, and rent relief where the state won’t.
Support housing collectives and tenant unions – push back against vulture funds and illegal evictions.
Talk openly about class, wages, and burnout – refuse to be shamed into silence.
Vote tactically and hold TDs to account – ask them who pays for their campaigns, and who they serve.

Mental Resistance:

Stop blaming yourself. The system wants you ashamed.
Find solidarity, not shame, in struggle. Your story is not a failure – it’s evidence.

Final Word: The Free State, My Hoop

They say Ireland is a republic. That it’s sovereign. That the worst of British cruelty died with the Empire.

But if it walks like austerity, talks like austerity, and crushes the poor under the boot of fiscal “prudence” – then call it what it is: colonial logic dressed in green, offering to buy you a Guinness.

We didn’t fight for freedom so a small few could buy holiday homes in Dalkey while the rest queue at food banks.

This is not just a fight for cheaper groceries.

It’s a fight for dignity, equality, and truth.

Domesticky