What happened is a culture of people who do not look for higher standards, professional and skilled approaches, but rather a “you pat my back and I pat your’s.” My father’s family emigrated through my decades and always to seek work and a better life. There existed nothing in Ireland for them. He talks about Fianna Fail supporters running building contractors during the 80’s who were the only contractors to get the work around. He talks about families being inherent supporters of main parties, from way back and talking about them as being great people. And other people being frowned apon for not supporting the same parties. I’m talking about the country areas. That kind of idolising a person because they had a profession seems to exist today. Alot of our government are primary school teachers and solicitors, none qualified to run an economy and that now clearly shows. My aunt, who recently past away, emigrated to NY in the 50’s. She had a very tough life up to then. She told me stories of the depression and looking for an egg to eat around the farmyard because she was so hungry. Then then went to work for some house in the UK where she slept in an attic and worked from 7am to midnight. I think that created abit of looking up to whoever could help you feather your own nest. She met her husband who was a GI coming home to visit his family’s homeland. It was soooo attractive to the local community that their wedding made it into a reference book written by a visiting priest. I would wonder if we have created a society where people around us are not looking for the most suitably qualified person for the job but rather the person who will provide you with employment, stop your family emigrating… Of recent times, in my opinion it is a lack of foresight and forward planning, an inherent inability to understand the workings for monetary policies and simple project management.

Thanks for the input Maria - if you know anybody else who might have thoughts, please send on a link to this site or the Facebook page.

In my opinion, Ireland is where it is now because of a unique combination of local gombeen politics and global economic trends. Dodgy developers taking advantage of increasingly open credit markets, paying off politicians and kicking back to bankers, building huge estates and apartment blocks, convincing the aspirational that buy-to-let was the key to future wealth, and all the while the country was, in real terms, still one of the poorest in Europe. False wealth, built on credit, the whole country was run like a massive Ponzi scheme, where only the already-rich got in and got out in time to make money. Now the public servants and the working tax payers are expected to take a hit (on top of what they’ve lost in property value, if they had any) in order to prop up the financial institutions that were one of the key causes of the whole mess. Unreal. If the populous wasn’t so dazed by our rapid rise and equally rapid fall, it would be out on the streets like the Greeks or the French.

And still, Bewley’s on Grafton St. are probably charging €20 for sausage and mash, and calling it a bargain.

Extra points for the use of gombeen.

The recession is fear.
Fear of the unknown, fear of what’s lucking around the corner… fear of the next budget.
For many, the fear has given way to tangible, insurmountable problems… for the rest of us, we wait.

The Celtic Tiger days were a time without fear. No fear for the future, no fear for what’s around the next corner.
And neither is healthy.

A touch of fear could have tempered the complacency of politicians, financial institutions and the people of Ireland who endorsed these politicians and didn’t demand higher standards of their people in office.
Fear will teach this generation never to repeat the same mistakes.

The recession is anger. Anger at those who walk away from the burning building without looking back to inquire about the health of others.

The recession is fear of worse to come.

I’m not altogether sure if it is even relevant, but sure, here my 2 cents worth – I could get into the politics of it, but I don’t think this recession is solely all about politics – it’s also about how we see ourselves on an individual level… we got caught up in a fictional version of ourselves; and that’s everyone, from the politicians to the plasterers.

I was born in 1980; while my memory is patchy at best – I remember it was a difficult decade, I remember my aunts and uncles leaving Ireland to try and find work in Canada, the US and the UK, I remember strikes and money stresses but I didn’t know what that really meant, but I remember it.

I suppose I’m one of the typical examples of the boom and then the crash… myself and my sister bought our house at the very top of the “housing bubble” – “if you don’t buy now, then you’ll end up living in a card board box on the side of the motorway somewhere outside Kildare” and I bought in to that panic, wholesale.

So we got ourselves a mortgage – and thanks to the nice people we got our mortgage from, they completely fabricated our earnings… I was at the very bottom of my pay scale working for the civil service – they kindly used the very top of that pay scale which I was about 10 years off achieving, they used overtime I once got, and had no guarantee of ever getting again. So we got approved for a mortgage we really couldn’t afford; it was about half of my monthly earnings – that’s too much, for a 25year old a year and a half out of collage, and I knew it but said nothing… 

We muddle through – I got a better job, but not that much better, I’m still the very definition of a middle income earner, only now that the property market is on it’s knees, if I managed to sell my house tomorrow, I would still owe the bank 150k – so our little 5 year plan – stay in that house for 5 years then sell and move to somewhere a little bigger in a nicer area is defunked, it’s not going to happen in the next 5 years or even 10 – I’ll be lucky to sell my house for what I paid for it ever. I don’t think that’s pessimistic – it’s realistic – a realism I’ve gotten now that I’ve taken the boom blinkers off. I can’t have whatever I want – if I want something I’ve to save – not borrow. And when it comes to borrowing, ask for what you think you can afford not more, the “if you don’t ask you won’t get” mentality is what got us here, so as much as I’d like to blame the dudes in the suits who gave me a mortgage I couldn’t afford, who managed to bankrupt the country and who have left the area I live in with empty and unfinished buildings left right and centre, I can’t, I did this to myself, and now have to deal with the consequences of a poor decision. And that’s fine – the idea of living with my sister for the next.. well.. the foreseeable future isn’t where I wanted to be – but it’s where I am. Patty and Selma did ok right?

I think this recession might be a good way to hit the rest button on the way Irish people see themselves, the next 5 years are going to be hard – and hardest for us, the middle income earners, our taxes will probably go up, interest rates will probably go up, our pay will stay the same and public services will probably be cut, so don’t get sick, don’t rely on any of our previous tax reliefs, and buy a bike.

I won’t have 2 foreign holidays a year, I won’t be popping off to a music festival wearing €60 wellies on a whim, I will buy that bottle of wine I love but only when it’s on special.  The glossy lacquer of aspirational living (I don’t think aspirational is a word – but it should be) has worn off and we’ve been given a much needed dose of realism and personal responsibility. I’ll still go out and see my friends in the pub, or go to dinner but I’ll put of getting new radiators in my house… it’s about choices and priorities and taking responsibility for those choices and priorities and not blaming the government for not keeping my spending in check, we lost the run of ourselves, now we’ve to live it.

I agree it’s not just about our politics. Our politics are a reflection of our society.

We’re still a culture that generally likes ‘sticking it to the man’ but we don’t actually realise that we’re fucking ourselves over. Our compensation culture is an example of that. It’s getting better, but still, as a result of that attitude insurance for businesses drives up costs across everything we do.

The second, and somewhat related issue, is that Irish people like to get along. We don’t like confrontation, and we certainly don’t like a ‘rat’. For some reason being a ‘rat’ is considered far worse than the actual misdemeanour the original person committed (which is crazy) As a result, in many jobs, and particularly the public service, people are loyal to someone who’s shit at their job, or who takes liberties and would never dream of confronting them, or reporting them to their boss. Therefor, our institutions are filled with people who suck time, energy and money away from talented people and projects. This is like a cancer in our organisations, and results in very low expectations and impacts everything from building new roads, to healthcare, to education.

If we want better services and a more successful country, we need to do a better job of complaining, we need to not stand by when a coworker is taking the piss, and we need to have a little bit more bottle to stand up for what’s right, honest and ethical, even if it means not getting along for a little while.