Reflections from a graduate of the University of Talk Radio

I remember the 80s vividly! I was a 20 something with 4 little children and a young husband who was unemployed for most of the decade. In my neighbourhood unemployment, which stood at almost 60% was running higher than the national average of 20 per cent. We didnt have a spare penny! Times were hard and sometimes soul destroying. We managed though!. I managed because I was lucky enough to live in a 'poor' area. Nobody had luxuries and as a child of the 70s I had never known luxury. You dont miss what you've never had I guess, and if nobody else has anything you dont feel different. Which is why I feel sorry for those who find themselves for the first time in their experience faced with the prospect of lower living standards. This recession will wipe the floor with the aspirations of the Celtic Tiger children.

I listened to talk radio a lot in the 80s. Radio was my open university. Presenters like Gay Byrne and Pat Kenny were my lecturers. I learnt about economy and society while I changed nappies. Some 'lectures' have remained in my memory and coloured my view of Ireland and being Irish. I recall one debate on whether Ireland would ever be able to provide full employment for its children. Most people agreed that we were a small country, lacking in natural resources and low in indigeneous industry and so expectations of 100% employment seemed a pipe dream. Emigration was robbing Ireland of yet another generation. But it wasnt the poorest who left, it was the brightest, the best educated, the most ambitious. The rest of us stayed here and qued each week for our 'labour'. My estate was filled with unemployed men who had entered the trades in the 70s but had never completed their apprenticships. The rest were people who had worked in traditional areas of manufacturing such as clothing. The 70s saw the influx of cheaper asian products and many factories that had employed generations of the same family went to the wall. I wonder now, if the (almost) full employment of the last decade was nothing but an abherration. Should we once again face up to the fact that full employment in Ireland is a dream and not an expectation.
People looked after themselves in the 80s so the black economy flourished. If my loo got blocked I could call on Joe down the road who once worked with a plumber. If you could afford it, Dave, who got laid of before completing his apprenticship as a diesal mechanic, could fix you up with a dangerous banger which you would drive about in untaxed and uninsured. Everybody broke the law in small ways. We bought dodgy clothes from our local shoplifters, we didnt declare the money we earned on nixers to the dole officer, we borrowed a neighbours ladder to connect our pipe tv. Those laws were for the rich people, the people who owned their own little 3up 2 down terrace and had a job in the civil service. Recession creates its own subculture. Its not a bad subculture either, when you get used to it.

So, I move on from my memories of recession 1989 style and on to recession 2009. This morning I passed the welfare office in Clondalkin. A que of early arrivers stood in an orderly line that stretched as far as the South Dublin County Council Offices, where one assumes, sitting councilers are working out their manifestos for the coming local elections. The unemployed were forgotten in the 80s. Unemployment was about figures, percentages, social welfare spending. The employed avoided those on welfare as if afraid that they might contract the virus of joblessness. I hope that the unemployed will not be forgotten this time round. The numbers of jobless may level off this year or next but they will not decline to any degree. Through lack of use, people will lose skills and confidence built up over the last years. Some people will never work again. Some people will turn to crime. Unemployment is about People. Remember that.

Goods were more expensive in my teens and twenties. In terms of buying power, we've never had it so good. Once upon a time a television could cost a few months wages. Everybody I knew rented their tellies from Murphys in Talbot St. My point is this: in recession circa 89, for the ordinary joe soap prices and, inflation were up, forward to recession 09 and prices are down, or so we're told. Well, my bet is, that we will start to see rising costs this year or next. This will be another great shock to the system of the tiger generation.

Ive graduated from the university of talk radio. Ive learned a lot about life in the years since 1981. Ive learned not to trust those who would have me believe they are fit to lead or guide me. I believe my own gut instincts. And my gut is saying to me "who ultimately profitted from the property boom? The people who sold the land, the stony weed filled fields and garbage strewn vacant lots, unwanted in the 80s but suddenly worth millions. Who were these people? Do we know them? Are they sitting on boards in our failed banks? Are they sitting in our dail? Are they currently living the high life in Florida or Barbados? Are they people who bought land and then sold it on to themselves with the help of those indispensible advisors to the white collar criminal, the accountants. These are the lucky winners of the Celtic Tiger Draw.

And so, the government must turn again to the only people who can bail Ireland Inc out of its mess. The people who carry the entrepreneurs and tycoons on their shoulders. Yes, society needs risk takers and entreprenuers to move forward but lets not forget that they can ride high only because the common man is carrying them. They COULDNT succeed without us. We carried the boom on our shoulders. Me, you, all of us who are members of the working and middle classes. And now we shoulder the bust. This is how human society works.

Recession isnt fair. It hits the poorest hardest. People become numbers. Politicians cover their own arses and help their golf club buddies stay rich. And eventually we at the bottom of the pyramid can expect to be thrown a few crumbs of prosperity when the cycle starts over again.