We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Bruce
saying something like:

Irish manufacturing has been in decline for a few years now as
companies like Dell and Apple source components and assemblies from
cheaper markets in the far east.

For the past decade, the odd few companies have been quietly shutting up
shop and moving to Poland, Czech, etc, where wages and the total cost of
manufacturing is at most a half of being in Ireland. Last year, many
more followed.
Government income from property deals amounted to damn near a third of
the total take - utter lunacy. Anyone who tried to sound a warning bell
over the past ten years or so was shouted down and told to shut the ****
up. Much the same as in the UK, in that respect.
Talk about building houses on sand, or flood plains, to be more topical.