Beating the gloom - We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again

THE weather and the economy seem to be working hand-in-glove in a kind of partnership of despair.

Falling share values and rising unemployment are not what we are used to and the sun is not, as it should in these high-summer days of late July, lifting the country’s spirits by shining in a clear sky from dawn to dusk.

Each and every day, each and every news programme, seems to bring another piece of bad, dispiriting news even if it is only another way of telling the story that has dominated our headlines and psyche for weeks.

Yesterday we had the news that Ryanair, that great storm-trooping privateer of Celtic Tiger Ireland, is facing losses of up to €60 million because of fuel costs. The warning comes after disappointing results for the first three months of the company’s trading year. Ryanair says profits fell 85% in the period to the end of June.

Also yesterday the National Economic Social Forum — the largest and most representative of the social partnership institutions — made its contribution to the emotional downturn by warning, as if we didn’t already know, that a slowdown in employment growth will have serious implications for low-skilled workers.

Earlier yesterday we heard how third-level colleges responded to a request from Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe for a 3% cut in payroll costs by saying that some courses would inevitably suffer and that services to students might be cut.

All of this came after a weekend when it became apparent that non-commercial semi-state agencies are being reviewed to see if they can be merged with other agencies to see if new, more streamlined and effective entities can be created. However, and in these circumstances this is a caveat to be treasured, there will not be any job losses because of any eventual mergers. And let us hope that it is an exercise in efficiency rather than one of begrudgery where critics are neutralised.

On top of all of that angst and gloom there are the World Trade talks impasse, the consequences which have been, as is usual, greatly exaggerated by the farmers’ lobby.

If all of that has not got you holding your head in your hands and wondering if we can survive at all we could talk about the Lisbon treaty. We could wonder how we are going to rebuild burnt bridges and our economy at the same time.

Unless there is some sort of unexpected miracle these are the kind of stories that we can expect for the foreseeable future and unless we learn to see the wood for the trees we could do deep, long-term damage to the confidence and ambition that energised our business culture for the past decade. We could pointlessly work ourselves into a lather of despair and imagine that everything is either doomed or impossible.

Anybody who suggests that we have already done so is talking through their hat. We enjoy material security and comfort that only a tiny proportion of the world’s population enjoy and there is no reason we cannot continue to do more or less that.

A broad view of our history will show that our recent abundance was almost an exception, a temporary blip as the IRFU might describe it. More often than not our lot was one of meagre resources and struggle.

We are a long, long way from having to contemplate that environment again and let today, whether the sun shines or not, be a day of optimism, energy, ambition and determination.

Those qualities worked for us before and they will work again.