Dr. Julien Mercille:

We often hear in Ireland and elsewhere that the Government is crazy, does not take the right decisions and so on. I do not believe a word of that. For example, the media were very rational in their coverage, according to their own interests. If one judges them from the interests of ordinary people, it is a different thing. They took the decisions they took because there was a benefit in that; people drew benefits from the housing bubble and from austerity. It is a very rational thing. It is not that people are running around like headless chickens and taking measures. There are some irrational decisions but they are more anomalies. By and large, it is rational. People in power would not be there if they were not rational; they would be elsewhere.