There has been a marked turning point in how people feel about this economic downturn, writes Orna Mulcahy
I DON’T know whether to book a family holiday this year or start stockpiling rice. One day things look fine, Obama will save us, and I’m thinking Kelly’s would be nice for a few days, the next it’s oh my God, we’re going to lose our savings, and the job might go too, and why did we renovate and who will pay the school fees?
A property crash is one thing; values might plunge 30, 40 or even 50 per cent, but at least houses go on standing and eventually prices will lift; the collapse of banking as we know it, plus Brian Lenihan going on Prime Timeunshaven – now it gets frightening.
So far, there’s been a good bit of toying with the notion of recession. In some ways, we’ve almost been enjoying the novelty of it. Okay, I’ll drop the royal “we”. I’ve been toying with the notion of recession, thinking about it Marie Antoinette-style: all those poor workers in Waterford Crystal (and should one be buying a complete set of Lismore for posterity); the layoffs in Dell; and the people stuck with houses worth far less than they paid for them, dreadful for them, shocking.
This week, all of a sudden, it felt different, less academic, more real. Friends have lost jobs. Their parents have lost pensions in bank shares. Black Monday brought the sickening thud of bank shares hitting the floor. But worse is the horror of a suicide. A country doctor tells me that in his small area alone he’s had to deal with the remains of ruined men who drove themselves into walls or checked into hotels to quietly do away with themselves. There has been a marked turning point in how people feel about this downturn. The sense of fear has sharpened.
Tuesday was a wonderful day of hope and sunshine in Washington and we fed off that for a while, but by Wednesday it was back to the business of living in what RTÉ likes to call “the gathering gloom of our economy”, at least until lunchtime, when an old friend took me to Bentleys.
The place was full and even if there were more people eating fish cakes (€16.75) rather than black sole (€49), you could have said, no recession here. There was an air of friends treating each other to a good lunch among various groups of black-suited individuals – liquidators, perhaps? – and men with flowing white hair and loose tweedy suits – mandarins from the Department of Finance, perhaps? They certainly weren’t property people or bankers.
There was less loud laughter and less ferrying around of expensive bottles of wine than at the lunches of old.
Champagne was conspicuously being served by the glass. We discussed the terrible situation and how we all have to get on with things. With time on his hands, he’s enrolled in a course in Krav Maga, the official defence system of the Israeli Defence Forces, because, you never know, he says, things could get nasty. His friend, who sells home security systems, has never been busier. The word is it’s going to be a bumper year for alarms. There are even clients thinking about panic rooms.
When Richard Corrigan himself lumbered through the room looking as though he’d stepped from a furnace, there was a general murmur of approval – now that is what a chef should look like, big and sweaty with stains down his front, rather than some mincing creature in impeccable whites dancing around on television.
It looked like it was hard work, keeping a restaurant full and making a few bob, which of course it is.
The concept of hard work has gone out of fashion, says a family law solicitor I know, who’s finding that some of her clients haven’t had real jobs for years. They have simply been living from deal to deal, and most of the deals have been property-related.
They might, a couple of years back, have considered regular jobs to be a bit Mickey Mouse, compared to the money that could be made from assembling sites, or getting planning and flipping properties, or making introductions that might result in a share of the proceeds.
The whole business could be run out of the local coffee shop or the lobby of a hotel, but the rewards could be huge.
Now the deals have dried up, but their expenses haven’t. No less than €4,000 a week is what socialite Fiona Nagle reckons she needs to maintain the lifestyle she built up with husband Breifne O’Brien, who conned some of their best friends out of millions. It’s a staggering amount, but then again maybe she wants to lay in a few supplies for the winter of discontent.