In March of this year, the Irish people voted against Fianna Fáil in historic numbers, delivering a thorough defeat to the party that had led the government for fourteen years. Democracy had worked, and a new government was sworn in.But how much had really changed?

In The Untouchables, Shane Ross and Nick Webb shine a light into dark corners of official Ireland to show that the blame for running the country into the ground goes well beyond Fianna Fáil, and that a dismaying number of the people who should share the blame are still in situ: in the civil service, on the boards of the leading companies, and in the banks, law firms and consultancies that carry so much influence in deciding who wins and who loses.

They name names, trace connections, and show how the untouchables managed to do so much damage, how they got away with it, and how so many of them are still in positions of power and influence in Ireland.