Thursday, October 22, 2009

POST CRASH LIFE


We live in a different country to the Ireland of the mid naughties. The denial about debt has caught up with us like a bad liver catches an alcoholic and one is left wondering in the carnage is there any light. We recently launched the "Help My House" scheme giving "Smart Advice for a fixed price" Nationwide (we have 19 RIAI colleagues in other counties). This service has led to some "micro projects" something I am happy to do, primarily because there a re many who have been left behind with house problems and no obvious place to go for independent advice. Look at www.helpmyhouse.ie for details.
Many people still have houses, money and problems and are more careful about how to spend it. Some are "greening" their homes like the sei.ie "Greener homes scheme where some grants are available for renewable technologies like Solar Panels, wind turbines and the like. Others are improving insulation, always a good idea, and again sei (Sustainable Energy Ireland) are offeing grants. Ideally people are working towards debt freedom and a degree of self sufficency...This approach to the current crisis (or "adjustment" as the optimists call it!) is in my opinion highly commendable. The other bright light is the restoration of communities where people are again passing the head of cabbage over the garden fence to the neighbour. Let's hope Celtic Tiger Obsession with SELF is a thing of the past. The things that cannot be shaken will remain at the end of all this shaking and that, ladies and gentlemen, is something more than a bandaged up ecomomy.