Looked at in the cold light of the current recession, the sheer gaudiness of those times – as exemplified by the air-headed socialites who continue to populate the pages of VIP and RSVP – now seems thoroughly laughable (as opposed to merely irritating). But unquestionably, the obsession with property was a virus that spread throughout the whole country – inadvertently setting us up for a major fall.
Not that it was all bad – far from it. The good times were genuinely good in all sorts of ways. Aside from the nauseating fixation on wealth and celebrity for their own sake, there were many fantastic elements to Ireland’s economic rise.
The most important was that those seeking jobs, having completed their education, no longer had to leave the country to find work. And what’s more, there were jobs out there of the type you might actually enjoy.
Ireland was no longer a place where obstacles were constantly being placed in the way of innovation and entrepreneurism – in fact, these were qualities that were positively valued. There was a sense that the country had come of age, that we were no longer a backwater where success in whatever field was attained against the odds. Immigrants poured in, changing the demeanour of the place: at last this was a multi-cultural society, a melting pot in which fellow Europeans and those from further afield travelled in hope and expectation.
Such was the level of contentment with the idea of economic growth, as it was defined by all of the relevant commentators (more or less) and official bodies at the time, that we returned the Bertie Ahern-led FF/PD government to power in 2002 – in an election in which the Fine Gael party was virtually wiped out – even after the steady stream of unsettling stories about dirty dealing and corruption emerging from the tribunals.
The multinational investment poured in. Domestic businesses thrived. Salaries went up, and many elements of our social and cultural infrastructure improved. People travelled more, and seemed to be enjoying themselves in a guilt-free style. The Irish went on the investment trail buying up properties in the UK, on the continent, in the US, in Dubai and other far-flung and exotic places. For a few years there, it looked as if we had more or less cracked it.
With the property bubble continuing to expand, housing estates sprang up all over the country at a quite staggering rate. There had to be an end to it sometime – but few anticipated just how dramatic the fallout would be.