We're living on memories, says Isabel Morton

THERE is a grainy, black and white quality to life in Ireland at the moment. All signs of Technicolor disappeared a few years ago and we’re reduced to a monochrome existence.

The woman behind the counter of my local petrol station put her finger on it:

“My nerves are shot, between the Budget, the weather and our Mary Byrne losing. She was our last hope and now she’s gone. We’ll have nothing to look forward to.”

Indeed. Ireland’s 51-year-old Tesco check-out operator turned X Factor singing star has become the county’s mascot to such an extent that her failure to reach the programme’s final dominated the news for days.

“Now there’s nothing at all to help take our minds off things, we’re even sick of the snow,” the woman went on. “It was lovely to start with, when the whole place looked like a Christmas card but then you have to get on with stuff and nobody can get on with anything because they can’t get around. Even the kids are getting bored with it now.”

A queue had developed, as people were topping up with petrol before the budget announcement later that day.

“You’re all trying to beat the budget by a Euro or two, by filling up your cars and stocking up on your cigarettes but youre wasting your time, they’ll get you one way or the other,” she announced to the queue in general.

“You may as well have stayed home and saved yourselves the bother.”

That afternoon I stayed home, as the battery in my old banger had given up the ghost. Listening as Brian Lenihan belted out the long-anticipated and much-feared Budget, it seemed appropriate, that sleety rain was falling outside, as I prepared a hearty pot of lentils and root vegetables in my steamed-up kitchen and thought about crackling radio broadcasts of yesteryear.

Comparisons with wartime rationings were compounded when warnings were issued regarding imminent water restrictions in Dublin. I filled large jugs, saucepans and other containers, to prepare for the siege. The general public is being blamed for the sudden lack of water as, supposedly, we’re all leaving our taps running to protect against frozen pipes. Would we be doing that, I wondered, if we had to pay water charges?

Mr Lenihan never mentioned them, but then again, the introduction of water charges would necessitate the installation of water meters in every home in the country and that would take some time to implement although it would at least give employment to a few plumbers, just as the severe winter weather conditions gave builders’ providers a small boost, as sales of shovels and spades and bags of salt and sand increased.

And electricians got an unexpected lift in the level of pre-Christmas business, as people called on them last week to deal with problems created by the lightening which resulted in a surge of electricity that burned out many electronic circuit boards in telephone systems, central heating boilers, computers and burglar alarms. And this week, plumbers will be in demand, as leaks in burst pipes become more evident as the thaw begins.

My thoughts returned to Mr Lenihan’s Budget speech, which was being delivered at such a pace that I feared I’d missed mention of details of a property tax but despite advance warnings, nothing was revealed on that front, not yet anyway.

It was no great shock to hear that Section 23 relief will now be restricted to Section 23 property and all unused allowances and property-based reliefs will be terminated by 2014 but it did come as a surprise to hear that stamp duty would be reduced to 1 per cent on all properties, both new and second-hand, on sales prices up to and including €1million and a tax of 2 per cent on property sales over that.

Obviously, with precious few property transactions happening at the moment anyway, lowering the stamp duty will not affect the Government coffers much and perhaps by reducing it, they may encourage some small movement in the market although an increase in public confidence and bank lending are the only things likely to have any significant effect.

Recent property purchasers will not be happy with the surprise change, particularly as Lenihan failed to mention any claw-back provision for them.

Of course, there is much we have yet to establish and no doubt we will find plenty of devil in the detail over the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the lyrics of Mary Byrne’s final song on X Factor said it all: “Memories . . . of the way we were”.

Isabel Morton is a property consultant