Record numbers in work - Let’s not blow it this time

Yesterday’s CSO figures showing a record number of people in work must be celebrated. There are this morning, 2,255,000 people at work, up 3.4%, or 74,100, year on year.

This trumps the benchmark set in the final quarter of 2007 when 2,237,000 people were at work.

This welcome level of engagement is the bedrock of any social reforms or service provision.

Without this kind of participation, as our recent history showed too well, ambitions cannot be realised, pressing obligations cannot be met. Those truths cut deep in an economy where a spectacular proportion of the wealth generated is exported to pay debts incurred by private investors who gambled on Irish banks.

Be that as it may, these happy figures give some room to ask bigger, more important questions about how this economic success is translated into social or individual success.

After all, the idea of something pretty close to full employment is pretty nebulous if you are trapped in an impossible home rental market and dependent on a questionable employment contract being renewed.

The last time we were in a similar position we spent it because we had it — or rather we spent a lot more than we had because we thought the boom could only get boomier.

Maybe we’ve learned the lesson, maybe this time it will be different and we will use this money to build a better society instead of being seduced by our own vanities.