Cars and more fancy cars, second holidays, hideaways in the sun, retail therapy, investment properties, dining out, satellite TV, DVDs and high-tech electronic equipment - for consumers it's been spend, spend, spend, writes Kathy Sheridan in the conclusion of the series.
Did we lose the run of ourselves in the boom years? Are there hundreds of massive, off-road vehicles hurtling around the mean, muddy uplands of Foxrock? Have we become a nation of winos? Is life worth living any more without an investment property or three? Have we forsaken instant mash for sushi, knitting wool for Lainey? Where did all that money go?
The jeeps are no mirage. Sales have quadrupled since 1997. The once-rugged and rackety Land Rover is sleek and shiny enough for Rathgar. Some 1,423 of them were sold last year compared with 128 in 1997. As for all those fat BMWs and Mercedes bearing down on you on the M50, the marques that say "I've arrived" have doubled their share of the market to more than five per cent - more than 1,500 E Class Mercedes (starting at about €45,000) were sold last year. Yet the little Fiat Punto almost outsold the two combined.
"Entry level" is where the boom resides in car sales. Cars such as the Kia, Fiesta, Corsa, Micra and Punto occupy more than 40 per cent of the market.
"There's no doubt there is plenty of disposable income around, and it's still there," says Paraic Mooney, MD of E. P. Mooney, the Republic's largest Nissan retailer. JNLR/MRBI surveys show that two-car families rose from one-fifth to one-third since 1995. The number who bought their cars new doubled. For Paraic Mooney, the boom in sales to the young in particular came as no surprise. In 1997, he noted 1980 to be the boom year for the Republic's birth rate; as the economy roared, those boomers were about to reach driving age.
Simple.
In 1995, 87,000 new cars were registered; last year it was heading for 170,000. In 2000, it was 230,000.
It's not just the figures, says Paraic Mooney; it's a new culture. People insist on changing their cars every two years or so now, for no other reason than fashion. They also head unerringly for the pricier hi-spec version. With some models, this can be a difference of €2,000. "They don't need these specifications [e.g. TV cameras in the boot to aid reversing manoeuvres]," he says, "but they want them. I don't even stock the basic Nissan models in the dearer ranges anymore."
And motoring outlay doesn't end with the repayments, of course. According to the Household Budget Surveys carried out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in the five years between 1995 and 2000, spending on road tax went up by a third, comprehensive insurance by nearly 150 per cent, petrol by 40 per cent, repairs and service by more than 60 per cent, and garaging/parking by a whopping 164 per cent.
For the 1999/2000 survey, the CSO felt obliged to introduce a new motoring category - for court and parking fines and the driving test.
The boom in spending is in the context of prices going up - there has been a cumulative rise over that same period of 15.6 per cent.
Property, the dinner party staple of the late 1990s, followed a similar pattern. It was in 1998 that Sorrento Terrace in Dalkey became shorthand for mad money, when an end-of-terrace house sold for nearly £6 million (€7.61 million). In the ensuing melée, says one estate agent wryly, Dalkey denizens simply added a million to the notional value of their property and told estate agents to go fetch.
Well over one-fifth of Lisney's sales in the boom years were to people "trading-up", according to Denis Beare. The numbers trading down also crept up, from 8.5 per cent to 13.5 per last year, presumably cashing in on all that crazy money sloshing around.
Investors played a key role in the surge. "At one stage, it was almost a yuppie accessory to have your own investment property," says another agent. People on average incomes and looking at 100 per cent borrowing on the back of the family home were among those queuing for anything with a roof and a rental to cover the mortgage. Apartments were being snapped up in twos and threes.
In 1997, around 25 per cent of Lisney's sales were to investors; although this tailed off to a low of around 10 per cent following the Bacon measures - introduced by the the Government in an attempt to cool prices. Last year purchases by investors had crept up to 18 per cent. In Maynooth, north Kildare, Sue Tuite of E. A. Coonan reckons investors are now back at around 20 per cent
Other phenomena emerged; one was holiday homes (in Ireland), which were a significant 13 per cent of Lisney's business last year.
Relationship breakdown was another. According to Lisney, it was behind some 1.7 per cent of its sales in 1997; last year, that figure was up to nearly three per cent. Sue Tuite reckons that it may account for between five to 10 per cent of sales at Coonan.
But whether people were trading up, down or staying put, they were still spending vast sums of money on the home. These were the years of Changing Rooms, House & Garden and Handy Andy.
According to Eddie Shanahan, group marketing manager of Arnott's, its turnover on furniture went up by about 170 per cent in five years.
CSO figures confirm the trend; spending on sitting-room and dining-room suites was up by 150 per cent. Wooden flooring, ready-made curtains and electric garden strimmers hit the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the first time this year.
We spent 1,000 per cent more on computers and accessories in those years (1995-2000), 120 per cent more on audio/video appliances and nearly three times more on dishwashers and bed linen. Outlay on household repairs and decoration soared by 60 per cent.
Piped gas (up 85 per cent) and central heating oil (up 60 per cent) began to make a serious dent in household budgets.
The decline of turf (down by 60 per cent) and firelighters told another story.
And as gardening became the new sex (related to the mystifying appeal of Charlie Dimmock and co), the "room outside" was also being primped. Spending went up by about 50 per cent, according to the CSO - and that does not include the requisite garden furniture, heaters, barbecues, statuary, ponds and flaming torches. When the British DIY giant, B&Q, opened (at 7 a.m.) to a packed house in Liffey Valley, Dublin, last week, gardening was the major attraction, followed by power tools; by the end of the first day's trading, several kinds of barbecue had been sold out.
Meanwhile, despite all that barbecuing, not to mention the ubiquitous TV food programmes that hailed home-cooking as - what else? - the new sex, people were eating out more. A lot more. The JNLR/MRBI surveys suggest that the numbers dining out in the previous month had climbed from just over half to 71 per cent in five years.
When Paul Flynn, chef-owner of the high-end Tannery restaurant in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, opened five years ago, there was one restaurant; now there are nine. Where once the Tannery had to think hard before offering couscous, Turkish ratatouille is on today's lunch menu.
The middle market is where the perceptible growth is, for many, and this is reflected in the Michelin Guide. Under the "Good Food at Moderate Prices", the number of Irish restaurants jumped from 5 to 124.
Geraldine Fitzpatrick, of the family-run Fitzers restaurants (in Dawson Street and Temple Bar, Dublin), reckons that between the restaurant and catering wings, their business has doubled in five years.
Middle market in Fitzers means €25-30 a head for a buzzy ambience where the food is stylish and children are cheerfully accommodated, in both food and price. In an era where dining out has become a routine, once-a-week (at least) indulgence for whole families, Fitzers and the pizza/pasta outlets have learned to give the customers what they want.
Meanwhile, it's a sign of the times that, in what used to be staid old Arnott's, the Studio Bar menu features spicy noodle salads and salmon and blue cheese panini.
As for the upper end of the market, Dublin restaurant prices have been raising eyebrows for some time - and not only among tourists. One appalled Dublin chef claims that diners need €100 to approach one of these places: "Even with that, you see customers being treated with contempt because they know that regardless of how you feel at the end of it, there will be more to take your place."
Maybe that explains why the queues for the takeaway - Chinese, Indian, fish and chips - grow longer by the week. The CSO puts the spend here at treble what it was in the mid-1990s.
At supermarket level, the key word is "convenience", according to Eamonn Quinn, marketing director of Superquinn. Stir-in sauces, chilled pasta, bagged salad leaves, chilled ready meals, have all become a staple in the basket of the time-pressed shopper and probably account for up to 15 per cent of the total spend, he says. And naturally, as convenience means more value-added, it will be more expensive.
What Quinn calls "dashboard dining" - a result of long commuting times and traffic congestion - is another phenomenon of the times, resulting in a vast increase in the type and style of food available in garage forecourts. Meanwhile, though mangoes are going mainstream in Superquinn, and the CSO suggests that we're indulging ourselves hugely with expensive fruit such as grapes and strawberries, bananas remain the biggest selling single item in the shop.
And for those still wondering why supermarket bills seem to be rising alarmingly, it seems that - as well as a cumulative price increase of 7.3 per cent since August, 2000 - a lot of us are quietly slipping two bottles of wine a week on average - and rising - into the basket. In fact, wine consumption, both at home and out, has grown by 150 per cent, according to the CSO. By comparison, the amount spent on beer at home rose 22 per cent and by 53 per cent out.
MEANWHILE, double-income parents and plentiful part-time work has meant the young have carved out distinctive markets in recent years. They don't just want to go shopping anymore, says Ann Marie Flood of A-Wear, they want an "experience". Nail bars, floppy sofas, magazines to occupy them while they wait outside the fitting room for a friend, video screens above the tills while they wait to pay, are all part of it. Babysitters on €35 a night (€7 an hour is not unusual) can well afford to spend €25 a week on a new top. Many do and the choice is broad.
Sometime in the mid-1990s, says Eddie Shanahan of Arnott's, retail therapy came to Dublin. Where once there were two fashion collections a year - spring and winter - now there are as many as eight. The CSO figures show a 50 per cent increased spend on women's clothing and footwear.
And where the average consumer probably spent £250 to £350 (€317 to €444) a year on beauty products, they probably spend €1,200 to €1,500 now, says Shanahan. Men are now a measurable contributor to the beauty care business: they account for some eight per cent of it in Arnott's.
Then there are the holidays. The traditional summer holiday laced with a second golfing or ski trip is no longer the preserve of the wealthy. The numbers taking package holidays soared by 94 per cent to nearly one million in five years. Those taking winter sun holidays rose by nearly 60 per cent to 133,000 and winter ski-ing rose by 82 per cent to 40,000.
Meanwhile, an indicator of just how many of the affluent Irish have colonised Spain with their second homes may be gauged from the fact that Aer Lingus, among others, has begun daily scheduled flights to Malaga and that these are being snapped up.
For those still wondering where all that money went, the answers are there, courtesy of the CSO. In five years, our spending on childcare (including babysitting) was up by 100 per cent, prescription medicines by 200 per cent and dentists' fees by 23 per cent. Our spend on fixed-line phone calls zoomed by a third and we spent on average about one-third of our fixed-line bills on our mobiles.
And, of course, we had to amuse ourselves; the amount spent on sports participation was up 88 per cent, and on sports clubs, by nearly 100 per cent (of which golf may be a significant component, given the Golfing Union of Ireland's 33 additional clubs and 39,000 extra members since 1997). "Other entertainment" went up by 82 per cent.
Meanwhile, our contributions to charity rose by a third. And sewing machines, pressure cookers, unfiltered cigarettes, school milk and electrical appliances purchased through the ESB were no longer considered significant enough to make the Consumer Price Index. Enter instead, specialised breads, driver theory test, baby juices, frozen foods broken into European and Oriental, DVD players and satellite TV.
The next CSO snapshot is due in 2007. Who is taking bets on how we will look then?