Property debt and sad scenes at airport: ISABEL MORTONreflects

REALITY HIT early, just after New Year’s, as I pottered around my still-sleepy house clutching my coffee mug and sighing at the thought of removing all signs of festive cheer and celebration.

In the early morning light, I shared a lot in common with our Christmas tree; both of us looking dehydrated, dishevelled and drooping with exhaustion. Having donned our respective finery and presided over a hectic few weeks of events including Christmas, a family wedding and the New Year celebrations, we were both now looking a bit the worse for wear. I flicked on its decorative lights and wished it were as easy to make myself look halfway presentable.

It had been an emotional few weeks full of joyous arrivals, tearful departures and happy family celebrations but that morning, over what was to be our last big lazy breakfast, the chat turned to check-in times, connecting flights and overweight luggage.

I could feel the holiday atmosphere disappearing, almost as fast as the bacon and eggs. The relaxed banter of previous mornings replaced by the unmistakably jittery chitchat of those who are preparing to depart and travel.

As I made more toast, I realised that at one point, four different languages were being spoken around my kitchen table, as mobile calls were being made and received.

One was trying to trace the exact location of a laptop, which had been left behind at Istanbul airport, while another was negotiating with a courier company to have the lost laptop returned to its owner in Korea.

Handbags were being searched for mislaid passports, myriad belongings retrieved, gathered-up and packed, contact details exchanged with newly made friends and images of smiling faces recorded on mobile phones.

I stood back and observed, as the Skype generation, (my adult children and their international mix of partners and friends) prepared to leave again after the celebrations and scatter widely across the globe. They spoke casually of meeting here, there and everywhere, as if these far-flung places were no further apart than Grafton Street is from Henry Street.

Everything appeared easily accessible and available to this, the lucky generation; the ones who were old enough to have enjoyed all the benefits of the boom years, yet not quite old enough to have been sucked into the property trap.

On one of my virtually daily trips to Dublin airport over the past few weeks, I met a friend of mine pulling in to the departures drop-off bay for Terminal 2. In the bare few minutes we had to chat (at 5.45am, just about dressed, hardly awake and being hassled by men in high-visibility jackets) she told me that, as all three of her children were now living and working in England, her husband and herself were seriously considering selling up (regardless of the financial loss) and following them.

“We know they won’t be able to come back here for a decade at least, and by then it may be too late for us, so we’re going now, while we still can and at least we might have some chance of getting to know our grandchildren,” she screeched back at me from her open car door as the parking supervisor gesticulated furiously.

Back home, I didn’t grumble about having to empty and reload the dishwasher for the umpteenth time, nor did I complain about the bundles of bed linen and towels to be changed and laundered or moan over the preparation of yet another meal for a multitude.

Instead, I listened to the radio, where new year wishes were being sent from young people enjoying a barbecue by a pool somewhere in Australia, to their families and friends back home in Co Donegal and Co Roscommon, and I felt for their parents, who, no doubt, wonder if they’ll ever return home.

Many would be unable to sell up and follow their children to the southern hemisphere, even if they wanted to, due to negative equity, their age and the fact that whatever savings they once had are now severely depleted.

For those parents and many others like them, who are, for the foreseeable future at least, chained to this country by their debt, there is no reprieve in sight. Nor is there any chance for their adult children, who, perversely, are locked out of this country, through unemployment and lack of opportunity.

Ireland, which prides itself on being so supportive of the family unit, is successfully managing to divide and conquer, leaving those already working to pay off the country’s debt and washing its hands of the unemployed, delighted if they emigrate, to be rid of them, off the live register.

Like our Christmas tree, our country is sad and worn out and its glittering decorations, which once hung so proudly, now weigh heavily on drooping branches, and the pine needles, once lush and green, are now brown, crisp and dry.

Unfortunately, it will take a bit more than switching on a few sets of decorative lights, to bring Ireland back to life.