Country Article / Postcards

My Irish Taxi Driver Told Me So

Date: 12/17/2005

"I went to a pub for dinner last night. When the waitress came over to the table and spoke to me with an Irish accent, I was so taken by surprise, I couldn't think how to respond."
-- Taxi driver in Waterford

Dear International Living Reader,

"Used to be, high school and college kids were delighted to get a job pulling pints in the local pub. Nowadays, they want nothing to do with that kind of work. They all get cushy jobs in the big call centers and make 8 or 10 euro an hour."

There's a lot of money in Ireland these days. Drive by any churchyard in Dublin or Cork any Sunday morning, and you'll see 60,000 euro and 70,000 euro cars parked all around. Stop in to chat with any travel agent, and he'll tell you that the Irish are regularly taking posh holidays to Paris, the South of France, Tuscany, the Alps...

And, increasingly, the Irish are not only visiting these high-ticket destinations, they're also buying real estate in them...1 and 2 million euro apartments, farmhouses, coastal villas...

Why not, when these second homes in the sun are more affordable than what the Irish property market has been offering up for the past half-dozen years? An entry-level house in any decent neighborhood in Dublin will set you back at least a million euro...probably a million-and-a-half.

What else did I learn from my taxi driver on the ride from Cork airport into Waterford?

Pubs are closing across the country, he reported, because the Irish are choosing these days to take their pints at home...where they can smoke while they drink. (Something they can no longer do in public houses, thanks to the smoking ban passed last year.)

The real estate market has slowed, he continued. Prices aren't falling...but no longer are they rising as they have for the past decade (when they increased by 20% to as much as 100% a year in certain regions). "People are holding their breath," my driver, Dave, told me, "waiting to see if we enjoy another burst...or if values begin to fall. Personally, I think there could be a serious decline. Already, it's taking longer for houses to sell, and prices are more negotiable than they've been in years.

"The worry," my sage taxi man confided, "is interest rates. So many have stretched to buy houses these past few years with adjustable rate loans. Interest rates have stayed very low, but, if they climb, a lot of people could be in trouble.

"But the big news this week," he explained, "are the demonstrations against Irish Ferries for replacing their Irish staff with non-nationals. The ferry company was going broke...couldn't afford their overheads...so they made a deal with their Irish staff, who agreed to take redundancy so Irish Ferries could replace them with East European labor, which is willing to work for about a quarter the cost."

It's this East European labor you see everywhere in this country today...in the pubs, the restaurants, the hotels. The good old days of Paddy behind the bar and Roisín and Fiona serving the tables are gone.

"Ah, but you have to remember," my new friend Dave reminded me, "the good old days were a time when most of us went around with holes in our shoes and our pants."

Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living

P.S. Another friend, this one not Irish, turned me onto something last week that, this week, Christmas week, I'd like to pass along to you. It's a group called Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org/). As my friend explained, "They combat hunger by providing animals for needy familiar around the world. Animals from which a family can earn a living--chickens (which produce nutritious eggs...that can be sold), goats (that produce nutritious milk that can be sold), etc. Part of the deal is that each recipient family must give away at least one of the offspring from their animal to another needy family in their own community. It's self-sustaining...and it's commerce-driven. You pick the animal you want to give...which makes it a really accessible idea for kids."

Jack is debating between a flock of ducks and a goat. When he's made up his mind, we'll arrange for the gift in his name.

Please enjoy this special week.