The Irish Times
Back to the future?
HARRY McGEE Political Staff
Today's young people have never known hard times, yet it is only 20 years since Ireland was mired into a recession that felt unending. Could it really get that bad again?
USUALLY THIS newspaper steers away from collar-grabbing shock headlines but there was something about last Tuesday's front-page lead that sent a shudder down the spine. It read: "ESRI warns of recession, job losses and renewed emigration."
HARRY McGEE Political Staff
Today's young people have never known hard times, yet it is only 20 years since Ireland was mired into a recession that felt unending. Could it really get that bad again?
USUALLY THIS newspaper steers away from collar-grabbing shock headlines but there was something about last Tuesday's front-page lead that sent a shudder down the spine. It read: "ESRI warns of recession, job losses and renewed emigration."
It's almost two decades since that potent combination of words showed up in the same parish. And together they conjured up a moment of grim déjà vu for those in their late 30s and older.
As the story fleshed out, there were more ominous details. The level of unemployment is forecast to rise by 60 per cent; there will be a net emigration of 20,000 people next year; and the economy will experience a recession this year for the first time since 1983.
These are alien concepts to today's young. Looked at now, the Ireland of the 1980s seems as distant a place as all those sad, monochrome countries in eastern Europe were before the Iron Curtain came down. In particular, it was the inclusion of the weasel 'R' word that had an impact: the shot heard around the world. Within 24 hours, more than 500 news outlets around the globe were carrying the story of an impending Irish recession, according to the hits on the Google news site.
But does this looming recession really mean recession, at least in the sense of what it meant for anybody born before 1970 and for whom the 1980s was the decade they want to forget?
Continue reading this excellent article by clicking below:
No comments:
Post a Comment