ONE OF THE biggest stories of the week wasn’t actually news to anyone.
Widely-publicised figures from Eurostat showed that Ireland is one of the worst performing countries in Europe when it comes to adults between the ages of 25 and 29 living in the family home, better only than Croatia, Slovakia, Greece and Italy.
More than two-thirds of people in that age cohort still live with their parents which, as noted, will not be new information to those of us trying to convince ourselves we are real adult human beings while operating out of the same bedroom that we once decorated with – in my case at least – a framed poster of Scarface for some reason.
There is no shortage of indignity associated with Ireland’s housing crisis, but this week’s figures tap into some new shame, a fresh realisation of embarrassment.
The housing crisis makes us look like a bunch of mama’s boys. It makes us look like we need the crust cut off our sandwiches. A bunch of Milhouses. You cannot feel like a real person if your bedroom looks like it smells like Lynx Africa and FIFA 2003.
This has been established in romcom after romcom.
Do you think 90s Sandra Bullock would date a man who still lived with his parents? Never. What do you think the Sex and The City women would think of us? They’d hunt us for sport, and they’d be right to do it.
It briefly looked like we’d finally found a solution to our economic woes this week, but even Bank of Ireland’s short-lived surprise unofficial stimulus package is unlikely to do enough to bridge the gap for these frustrated young people.
Some glitch in Bank of Ireland’s digital infrastructure meant for one evening, customers could remove up to €1,000 from their account. Until now the banking apps have only ever worked against us. It felt appropriate that, just once, the bank’s tech screwed up in the other direction and just started pumping out money.
Yes, for one shining moment this week, it seemed as though we’d discovered the perfect crime. That is until you think about it for like five seconds and realise that robbing money from your own bank account, using a debit card that’s in your own name, provided to you by the bank you’re now trying to rob, attached to an account number that the bank probably keeps on file somewhere, is sadly not the masterstroke it seemed upon first glance.
Following the outage yesterday, the App and 3650nline are back working again. Overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day. We sincerely apologise for the disruption this outage caused - we know it fell far below the standards our customers expect from us.
— Bank of Ireland (@talktoBOI) August 16, 2023
If anyone thought that the guys who refuse to pass on interest rate gains to savers and charge us quarterly fees to let them hold on to our money were going to simply let this one slide then, sadly, they live in a more idyllic fantasy of this world than the rest of us.
Still, huge respect for anyone who did have the commitment to hit the ATM. Even if you have to give the money back, if the bank looks like it’s giving away money for even an hour, it’s your obligation to go and take the money. It’s like clapping when someone drops a pint. It’s the only way they’ll learn.
Bank of Ireland say they have since reclaimed all of the money that escaped, which is lucky because if 500,000 people had each made off with €1,000, the bank’s profits would only be half a billion right now, which would be a human tragedy.
It had already been a week rich with absurdity, then, when new RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst dropped the bombshell on Thursday night that there would be no readeption for Ryan Tubridy. Despite a proposal to bring Tubridy back at a salary of €170,000, negotiations fell through at the last minute and Bakhurst pulled the plug and broke up with Tubridy over the phone.
Since the original scandal broke, Tubridy has made various public pronouncements that probably haven’t helped his case – with either the public or RTÉ – but it was this week’s response to the Grant Thornton report that broke the camel’s Bakhurst (no, no, don’t applaud).
Sheriff Kevin has been ruthless in his own statements since dropping Tubridy, detailing the split in a way that feels almost like we’re learning a bit too much.
Bakhurst told Morning Ireland that Tubridy “was not aware” of the level of resistance among RTÉ staff to his return, and that Tubridy was “shocked and disappointed” when he found out he wouldn’t be gracing the grounds of Montrose again. Yes, we want transparency, Kevin, but that doesn’t mean you need to tell us that you made Ryan Tubridy cry.
It would be naive to think that this is the final chapter in a saga that has defined the summer news cycle. As one of Ireland’s best known public figures, whatever Ryan Tubridy chooses to do next – now cut loose from the RTÉ umbilical cord – will be a matter of intense interest.
Who is Ryan Tubridy when he’s not on RTÉ? Maybe he’ll start his own unauthorised Late Late Show. Maybe he’ll start wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses. Maybe he’ll take up bodybuilding and get shredded and start doing street-fights. Maybe he’ll start a podcast. Nobody knows, that’s the beauty of it! He’ll almost certainly start a podcast.
For his part, Bakhurst’s tone has been professional, but ultimately unrelenting. “I hope for him there is demand (from other stations) because he’s a talented guy… He’s got a mortgage to pay,” he said on Friday morning. Pretty much: So long, Ryan! Good luck with the mortgage, hope you don’t end up back in your childhood bedroom like the rest of them!
Ice cold.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say