The David McWilliams Podcast The Failure Premium: Where is the Money Going?
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May 5, 2026 
Sinead O'Sullivan, writer and commentator on Irish economic and social policy, outlines the idea of a 'failure premium' in public spending. She traces how subsidies and short-term fixes funnel money into private hands, inflate rents, and outsource costs like refugee housing. Short, sharp takes on housing, health, infrastructure and the politics that entrench dysfunction.
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Overdraft Fee Epiphany On Cost Of Being Poor
- Sinead recounts her first adult bank account where a £4 overdraft triggered a £30 fee, showing how being poor is expensive.
- She uses the cheap-shoes example: repeatedly replacing low-quality items costs more over time than buying durable ones.
Subsidies Inflate Asset Prices
- Ireland spends large subsidies to private asset owners instead of building public assets, which inflates asset prices and entrenches inequality.
- Sinead O'Sullivan describes HAP subsidies flowing to landlords who raise rents, making tenants worse off and assets pricier.
Distribution Over Coordination Problem
- The government has developed capacity to distribute capital but lacks coordination capacity to build and own infrastructure.
- Sinead argues other states would coordinate housing builds while Ireland defaults to subsidies that worsen the problem.