Adam Maguire: Irish Bailout Babies still paying the price of the financial crash
A passer-by stops at the Sony shop in Dublin to watch then taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Brian Cowen speaking on November 24, 2010, the day the government unveiled its four-year-plan in the wake of the global crash of 2008. Picture: Laura Hutton/Photocall
I can quite clearly remember where I was when the IMF bailout was announced. My now wife and I were living in a small flat in Finglas, which we’d only started renting that year.
When I say flat, it was actually the top half of an old, council-built, three-bed end-of-terrace house that an opportunistic landlord had split into two units. We had to go through the kitchen to get to the toilet, we had to feed €2 coins into the meter to keep the lights on, and the smell of weed from our downstairs neighbour seeped up through the hot press. But that didn’t matter, because it was ours.
Most importantly, at €800 a month, it was an affordable place for a struggling freelance journalist and a mid-teacher-training special needs assistant.
So, we sat in our sitting room (which once would have been someone’s bedroom) and watched as the details of the €85bn bailout package were outlined on the Six One news. Then pundit and politician alike lined up to explain just how banjaxed the economy was (as if that was a surprise to anyone).
Later that evening we trudged through the snow to our local to drown our country’s sorrows with a few friends.
I remember the mixture of fear, anxiety, and resignation that was in the air that night — something that would hang over the entire country in the months and years to come. People worried what the crisis meant for their wages, pensions, taxes, and jobs; and they worried about what all that would mean for their families, homes, and futures.
I doubt, though, anyone was worried that the bailout would still be inspiring that kind of fear, anxiety, and resignation almost 15 years later. Specifically amongst their kids and grandkids.
Of course everyone was scarred by the crash. But it’s the children of the Celtic Tiger — the generation that I call the Bailout Babies — that continue to count the cost.
Even those born in the early years of the boom were never old enough to truly benefit from excess that the era promised. Sure, some may have gotten a trip or two to Disneyland (Florida, of course), or a few over-the-top birthday bashes. But while they grew up seeing others waltz into high-paying jobs, having money thrown at them by the banks, that was all gone by the time they were adults.
Even before the IMF came to town, it was all over; the tiger was shot, the loan book was shut.
Most of the Bailout Babies would have been too young to fully understand what Brian Cowen was talking about on November 28, 2010. Some may not have known who Brian Cowen was. A few may even have grown up never hearing of Celtic Tigers or troikas.
But while it wasn’t their boom, it very quickly became their bust.
They would have felt the fear, anxiety, and resignation sweep into their homes during the crash. They would have watched parents stress about redundancy, mortgage repayments, and bills. They might have seen tensions rise as their folks fended off letter after phone call after knock-on-the-door from bankers.
As CMAT references in her song 'Euro-Country', some would have seen their families irrevocably broken by the crash through suicide, break-ups, and illness.
The country did, of course, recover. On paper at least. But now those Bailout Babies — aged anywhere from 18 through to their 30s — are the same ones struggling to get a place of their own.
And it’s not for a lack of trying.
Contrary to the stereotype of being lazy and entitled, this generation is better educated and trained than any that has come before. And they are applying those skills in good, often globally-important jobs. Despite that, their wages have failed to keep pace with their older peers’ — and certainly failed to keep up with the cost of housing.
For all the talk of avocado toast and chai lattes, the data shows this generation are also more fiscally prudent than their parents — but that only gets you so far when what you’re saving for gets thousands of euro dearer with each passing month.
And so they are forced into unsecure rentals with no end in sight.
Despite our unimpressive incomes my wife and I were able to rent and save and, five years later, we bought. It wasn’t easy but it was do-able — and we could afford regular nights out, takeaways, and even the odd trip while we did it.
But the dramatic rise in rental prices in the past decade means that most who can still afford it have little left for other essentials, never mind savings or — perish the thought — enjoying life. (If it tracked the national average, that half of a corpo house in Finglas would now cost upwards of €1,720 a month).
So, increasingly, people stay in their parents’ homes — far beyond what was once considered normal. And what is easy to overlook is what all of this means beyond housing. Because not having a place of your own impacts every facet of your life.
Living in your parents’ box room makes it much harder to date, for example.
Turning that Tinder flirtation into something real is hard enough without having to tip-toe up the stairs to seal the deal. That, in turn, lessens the chances of developing a relationship — the irony being that two incomes is now a must for anyone hoping to buy or rent.
And if your goal of your own home is a decade or more away, how do you spend your time — and your money — while stuck in this limbo? What does it do to your mental health? And what does it all mean for the country?
It’s those questions I wanted to answer in my book The Bailout Babies — which looks at the challenges facing this generation, and how they’ve re-written the rules in response.
While researching it, I found examples of the new ways that young people are socialising — putting down the pint in favour of axe-throwing, pottery painting, and late-night beach meditation.
I met those inventing new jobs, turning hobbies into revenue streams as they sought to earn their way out of the bind.
I met people who travelled cross- country to buy a bar of chocolate as a way of self-soothing their existential dread.
And I was struck by their ambition, guile, and resilience. They were refusing to sit back and become victims of a crisis others had gifted them.
But I also felt their frustration, fatigue, and hopelessness.
Like the 21-year-old living in her parents’ converted garage. She was in college midweek and working part-time at weekends but didn’t expect to be a homeowner for at least another 15 years.
Or the young women freezing her eggs because she worried that, by the time she had a home, she’d be at an age where conceiving might be difficult.
Or the many people who were making concrete plans to emigrate, because they didn’t see any reason to stay — something traditionally reserved for recessions.
And while I was heartened by the Bailout Babies’ drive, I came away even more concerned about what will happen if they’re left to languish. Not just for them, but for all of us.
Because the longer young people struggle to build their own lives, make their own way, and start their own families, and the more of them who opt instead to strike out abroad, the bigger the price we’ll all pay down the line.
- Adam Maguire is the author of
