Jean Pisani-Ferry has a generally reasonable discussion of the problems with the “troika” that has managed European rescue policies. But I was struck by this:

Three years later, the results are mixed at best. Unemployment has increased much more than anticipated and social hardship is unmistakable. There is one bright spot: Ireland, which is set to recover from an exceptionally severe financial crisis. But there is also a dark spot …

What’s the Irish for “et tu, Jean”? As best I can tell, Ireland has been universally (that is, by all the Serious people) proclaimed a successful role model at least once a year since the crisis began. Meanwhile, unemployment remains spectacularly high, although down a bit. Growth looks like this:

Photo

This is a “bright spot”?

True, Pisani-Ferry doesn’t actually say that Ireland is recovering, only that it is “set to recover”. But we’ve heard that before, and before, and before. And as this useful summary points out, much of the data used to tell the recovery story is suspect — not because it’s wrong, exactly, but because Ireland’s odd economic structure, in which so much of its reported exports in particular come from companies that add little value in Ireland, means that the usual numbers have to be treated with great caution.

So look: maybe Ireland really is going to recover for real soon; let’s hope so. But the repeated declarations that it is already a success story — this has been going on for at least three years — are just weird.

And yes, it seems obvious to me that Ireland keeps being proclaimed a success because it’s supposed to be a success: they did the austerity thing forcefully, with a minimum of complaints, so there must be a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, right?