Part of the reason things were shite was the oil crisis and joining the EU . Change and adjustment . Politically , Irish politicians and public servants got feted and wined and dined . Ireland was given grant aid to bring up services etc but also to prime the pump to buy EU goods and services . The explorers gave the natives blankets beads and mirrors . The customs union was good but that ' s not saying we are integrated . I think that on a euro convergence side the pump was primed with money and of course the entry criteria were ignored and scammed . For things to continue that way the eu would have to keep priming the pump with money . Its not good enough to assign blame to Ireland or Greece for that matter for what happened as we were allowed entry . I was trying to come up with an equivalence but the ethics of it is that things actually hadn ' t happened economically to warrant the euro . Joining the euro for ireland was to make things boomier . The euro promised to eliminate boom and bust but what happened is that it launched us on a trajectory .