Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Political Rhetoric
A change of government in 2011 - which saw Fianna Fáil decimated and the election of
Fine Gael in coalition with the Labour Party - was initially greeted with cautious hope,
but that hope soon gave way to despair when the pre-election rhetoric about creating jobs
and making 'Ireland the best small country in the world to do business in' was revealed to
be just that - rhetoric.
Doing More with Less
Spend any length of time in a Dubliner's company and you'll soon hear their version of
what went wrong, who's to blame and what the future holds, but no matter which version
you get, you'll quickly recognise how frustrated most people are. Unemployment is at a
20-year high, and with more than 3000 people leaving Ireland every month, emigration is
now at its highest point since the Famine. Mortgage distress - the horrendous by-product
of the burst property bubble - is a major theme, as an increasing number of Dubliners find
themselves unable to make mortgage repayments on properties that in some cases have
lost more than half their value.
'Doing more with less' is the dispiriting buzz phrase of the moment - whether it's feed-
ing the family, paying off debt or running a business for ever-dwindling consumers. Dub-
liners are working harder than ever for less pay: salary cuts are the price they pay for the
privilege of still having a job.
But just as they're frustrated and frightened by an uncertain future, they remain, for the
most part, doggedly defiant, urged on by the idea that things are so bad they can only get
better. Which might explain why Dubliners (and the Irish in general) are so reluctant to
take to the streets with their discontent: there is sympathy and even admiration for Greek
and Spanish defiance, but it's tempered by a pragmatism that inevitably concludes that
protesting doesn't really fix anything and that as bad as the situation in Dublin un-
doubtedly is, it's still better than what's going on in Athens, Madrid or Nicosia.
Hope for the Future
Some pundits will point to the city's long history of tough times and declare there's noth-
ing new, but there's a whole generation of Dubliners who've never known difficult times
or recession: they grew up with the unfettered ambitions of the Celtic Tiger, where
everything was possible so long as you were willing to chase it. Rather than surrender
their ambitions many have opted to emigrate, but those that have stayed have endeavoured
to find new opportunities amid the mayhem. New ventures are starting all the time, smal-
