Who sank the Celtic Tiger? Fintan O'Toole gives us his take in 'Ship of Fools'

“They were buying up property around the world, operating on a global level, but operating psychologically as though they were still small farmers,” O’Toole says.

“The other big cultural factor is something that didn’t happen. We have all these big multinationals, all this technology, Intel, Pfizer, IBM, etc., and we culturally completely ignored it. Every single information technology project the government launches though the Celtic Tiger years was a complete fiasco.

“You have a government is dealing all the time with the best trans-national corporations, and every time they try a project themselves it’s a complete disaster. You realized quickly that no one in government knew or understood the first thing about IT.”

“In the 19th century middle class Irish people wanted their children to be doctors and lawyers. In 21st century Ireland they still wanted the same thing. You can tell this by looking at the points required to enter law or medicine at universities. To enter a computing or IT class you really just needed to show up. 

“That tells you something about the aspirations of a society. We didn’t take ownership in any sense of all the stuff that was happening to us. It was external. It had nothing really to do with us.

“We had those multinationals screaming that they could not get enough Irish people to join them. When they tried to grow they found it a problem.”

'Ship of Fools' argues that the boom years were largely squandered.

“We had 15 years to make good use of it, but the educational system failed us (the last change in the leaving certificate curriculum relating to computers was in 1980). The only way to fix it now is to tackle it head on.

“When you have a political system that is completely un-ambitious in terms of ideas or any long term thinking, without debates about what its priorities were, where the society is going or what its values should be, with no real vigor in the public realm about any of these issues.

“I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re going to get out of this situation without pretty fundamental political change. Government matters in a small country. It can shape the interaction of the society with the economy nationally and globally. We need really smart government here. It should not take a catastrophe to get us to engage with these issues.”

'Ship of Fools' will be released in the U.S. early in 2010. Readers can also order it at www.amazon.co.uk.

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Nster.com