Louise McSharry

And economist Sinead O'Sullivan was talking about the problems that people are facing in their daily lives.

She basically said everyone, their own life has ample examples of frustration and pent up anger at the inability of the state to do anything.

But yet we're told we are incredibly wealthy and the economy is doing incredibly well.

So there is this massive disconnect.

And Mary Butler's response was, I'm actually a little taken aback by the negative narrative I've listened to for the last 10 minutes.

She said that the assessment is very negative.

People don't consider the fact that Ireland has the highest life expectancy across the EU at full employment and how it has, quote, bounced back to challenges from Brexit, COVID and Ukraine.

Like, this is the problem with the government.

Like, they're patting themselves on the back.

About those things that she mentioned there, while everyone in the country, every normal person in the country in a normal tax bracket is losing their minds at the fact that they can't go into Tesco without spending 80 euro, that they can't afford to fill up their car at the pump, that they can't take a bus from A to B on time or trust that the bus is going to be there, that a children's hospital is they're literally pumping gas.

billions in the toilet it feels like over children's hospital we still don't have access to so like to me it's just wild that that any government minister would respond to legitimate criticism based on people's actual experiences in this country and be like i'm taken aback by that

What about all these great things we're doing?

Like, babe, it would serve you so much better to say, yeah, I get it.

Like, I hear that.

I understand that people are frustrated and there are things we need to improve.

Like, I need to get in there and reframe the entire government communication strategy, Carl.

And maybe also try and get them to change their actual strategy as well.

agree that things aren't good enough, that things need to change.

But then the reality is if we had an election tomorrow, probably nothing would change or very little.

And that's the real struggle in this country and something I'll never understand is that things, there's never really any big change.