Madam, – I am a 23-year-old with a good, secure job. I don’t have any children or a mortgage. Like most my age I like to go out at the weekend and let my hair down. On a Saturday night around the pubs and clubs of Dublin city centre, you would be hard pressed to find any signs of a recession. It’s normal to have to pay €10 to get into many nightclubs and drink prices are as extortionate as ever.
Young people can still afford to go out up to two nights at the weekend, although not all of them have jobs. I have friends receiving job seeker’s benefit (without seeking a job) who are having a great time on the State. Listening to my parents and others of their generation, we young ones today don’t have it half as bad as they did. They were lucky if they had enough money to buy a bed when they bought their houses. Today the first thing young house-buyers think they need in their new home is a plasma TV. We have no idea what recession really is.
A lot of people in my generation are fortunate enough to have parents who have paid their mortgages and allow their children to live at home as long as they like, even if those children have good jobs. So, is this recession really as bad as that of the 1980s? Not for us, and yes, I do know how lucky I am. – Yours, etc,