Owning an airline has never been a legitimate business. It's what the rich do for fun, like owning racehorses or challenging for the Americas Cup.
If Australia (and its little prodigal bastard cousin) wants an airline, taxpayers have to accept the burden.
As for the Irish, they're good at poetry and music and drinking, but they're also extraordinarily thick when it comes to economics, as evidenced by their current situation, as well as the fad-farming debacle they created decades ago, otherwise known as the potatoe famine.