Ireland and the Netherlands used to be on my shortlist for places to go if a massive SHTF scenario happened in the U.S., not anymore with the directions they've each been headed, which you capture well for Ireland here.
But hey, sure it's grand, we've always done it this way.
(She does not have cancer. We were able to determine this by going to Northern Ireland and availing of private consultations in the UK. But it's absurd that it was necessary to do this.)
Of course, we have an agent looking for houses in Utrecht for us now, so maybe I'm just trading one dysfunctional state for another. At least one with better bike infra, though!
If you'd like a good example, the vast majority of the politicians in power are landlords or land owners. In recent years we have seen massive inflation in property prices and rent. There's been an erosion of protections agaisnt homelessness, and large payouts for landlords.
Leo Varadkar when in power was caught in broad daylight committing corruption. Giving confidential documents to a friend who owned a health clinic. The criminal investigation was brushed under a rug.
There's hope with a new goverment, it would likely be quite left leaning and many parties involved would be socialist of some form. But to be fair there are massive problems socially with Ireland, same with the Netherlands and in turn a lot of other European states.