It is only when you come home after living abroad for a while that you realise what a nation of whingers we are. An alien paying a brief visit to this small but prosperous island would be forgiven for thinking that we were a country on the brink of social disaster and economic melt-down. We're in a mess, commentators tell us, and the party is over, tells Miriam Donohoe.
Bertie Ahern got himself into trouble recently when he accused us of being whingers in the context of the Nice Treaty. Unfortunately, our whingeing is not confined to Nice.
I was only back in the country five minutes when I experienced some good-old fashioned Irish whingeing some weeks ago. We happened to land in Dublin airport a half an hour after the Irish soccer team arrived home after their successful World Cup campaign. Instead of celebrating our outstanding performance, we encountered a nation divided on whether the homecoming should be held in the city centre or the Phoenix Park.
It has been one long whine every since.
The biggest whinge is about the price of everything. OK, prices have undoubtedly increased. (Though judging from the packed shops, travel agents, restaurants and pubs, this hasn't stopped people from spending.) When you consider that most people are earning more and paying less tax than a couple of years ago, this "whinge" doesn't really stand up.
Then there has been the traditional moan about "the weather". The tourist industry has been especially vocal this summer on the weather, complaining that times are very tough. On Morning Ireland recently, we had an industry representative slamming Minister John O'Donoghue for giving only €3 million to the sectors to ease their current difficulties. Have they considered for one moment that the exorbitant prices they are charging visitors for bed and board may also have something to do with poor business?
Maybe, Minister, you should have made it a condition when giving them money that they give it back to customers in some form when times get better and when the weather improves.
Reintigration back into Ireland would not have been complete without a good auld gripe from the farmers, who are currently arguing that CAP reforms will drive them off the land. Where have we heard that before from the agricultural sector? Sure that whinge goes right back to 1973, when we first joined the European Community.
With increased prosperity, some higher class of whinge has crept in. What about the woman who wrote into RTÉ Radio presenter Brenda Power recently and complained that she was finding it hard to say "no" to friends wanting to stay in her holiday home in Spain? Or the friend who has to wait three months for delivery of his new car as the manufacturer can't keep up with demand?
Is life tough or what?
The other disgraceful "whinge" from people is that our country is being "swamped" by immigrants and asylum-seekers. Turf out the foreign spongers is the well-worn cry.
In the last few weeks we have had some hysteria about the fact that a period of belt-tightening is on the way and public spending cuts are under way. Minister Charlie McCreevy even says tax increases might be introduced in his December budget. Shock horror.
Perhaps this injection of reality would be no bad thing. Things have become too cushy. With the Celtic Tiger and prosperity has come higher expectations and an increased standard of living. It is time to grab a hold of ourselves and stop for a moment to consider what we have.
The vast majority of people in Ireland enjoy a good standard of living today. It's better than it has been for decades, it's a nice change from when times were really tough and when our young people were leaving in their thousands to find work abroad.
One can't argue that there have been recent job losses, the latest being the announcement from Elan that 330 jobs will be shed before the end of the year, but let's not forget unemployment is still less than 5 per cent. In most developed countries this is regarded as full employment. The reality is if you want to work in Ireland you can, and in most cases for fairly good rewards.
THE two-car, two-house, two-holidays- a-year family is not the rare thing it used to be. Later this month, many teenagers will celebrate their Leaving Cert results not with a night on the town, but with a wild two-week holiday in Spain.
Up to 10,000 of our citizens could afford to spend two weeks at the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, two of the most expensive countries in the world. I was amazed to be told by a shop assistant this week their most popular model of child's runner was sold out at just under €100 a pair. The vast majority of us have it good and it really isn't on to spend so many of our waking hours complaining. We do have problems and it is a pity we don't hear more whingeing for things that really matter.
For example, despite the Celtic Tiger and the fact we have come through a spectacular economic boom, there are still thousands of families in Ireland living on the bread line. We still have people begging on our streets.
One of our most serious social problems is drug-addiction. So many young people abuse alcohol. What about our waste crisis?
It is sad that real and serious problems like these are getting brushed aside in favour of more trivial ones. Or have I now joined the whingers?