Generation Y are confident they can weather this temporary recession storm, writes Kitty Holland
SOCIOLOGISTS HAVE called them "Generation Y". Others have dubbed them "Generation Me". They are anyone born since the late 1980s and to many they are the most over-indulged, spoiled generation Ireland has ever seen.
Growing up in the boom has allowed them to expect life will bring them whatever they hope for - whether that be a good education, a fulfilling job or the latest i-Pod.
Just this week, one Dublin mother told this reporter how her 16-year-old daughter was aghast when told she could not have her hair done in a Toni Guy salon - where a cut and blow-dry will set you back €85. The daughter's response when her mother pointed out that there was a recession on: "Recession? What's that got to do with us?"
The future for the cossetted cubs of the Tiger years might be more uncertain than they are ready to acknowledge. Those who spoke to 'The Irish Times', however, were aware of an economic ill-wind but at the same time were self-assured and largely optimistic about their future.
Ciara Murphy (17) is a Leaving Cert pupil at St Mary's Holy Faith Convent in Glasnevin on Dublin's northside. "Definitely since we came back in September people are getting more conscious about money. Like you'd think twice going for a night out. You'd easily spend €70 going to a nightclub so people are going to each other's houses more.
"We had part-time jobs during the summer," she says, turning to her friend, Sarah Callinan (18), also at St Mary's, "but we had to give them up to have more free time to study. So you prioritise what you spend your money on - clothes, fake tan, hair extensions."
Everyone, they say, has i-Pods, mobile phones and most have their own TV in their bedrooms. There seems little concern these "essentials" would ever be given up. But they do worry about college fees and job prospects.
"I'd worry about affording to go to college," says Ciara, who'd like to do business studies at DCU. "If they bring in registration fees of over €1,000 I'd worry about that. I'd think that's going to affect people."
Sarah, who would like to be a primary-school teacher, says her choice was influenced by the sense that there will "always be a need for teachers . . . I would have loved to be a journalist too but when you hear about cutbacks in media and RTÉ, well I definitely think people are thinking about more secure jobs."
Third-level students also find themselves thinking about a less secure future and present.
David Quinn (19), a second-year student of Business, Economic and Social Studies at Trinity College, is not feeling the recession "too much personally", though he is now more likely to choose a cut-price student night out rather than "a normal one".
"Last week I was at a night called the Recession Session in Zanzibar on the quays. Tickets were €4.95 and all drinks were €1.95. You'd go for those more now. People I know are finding it hard to get part-time jobs this year. They're handing in their CVs all over town and really struggling to get work. I'm lucky, I have been working in a jewellery shop for a year."
It's here he has really noticed the downturn. "You can definitely see it in the sales we make. It's only foreign people now who are spending the big money - a couple of grand or so. Very few Irish people are spending that and that's only been in the past six months."
He says he would be worried about long-term job prospects if the recession were to last more than two more years. "I don't plan to be living at home with my parents when I finish here. But hopefully I'll be well-enough qualified to get a decent job."
Pat O'Sullivan, principal at Rockwell College, a private co-educational school in
Co Tipperary, describes young people as "certainly the spoiled generation", saying all now have mobile phones and their own laptops, but adds this is positive as it makes young people "more independent".
"They are all nice youngsters though and we as adults are all guilty perhaps of giving them too much, too soon. Perhaps an economic downturn will be an opportunity to draw something of a line under it."
Derek Lowry, principal of Newpark Comprehensive in Dublin, says pupils are "in a sense isolated still" from the impact of a recession. He hasn't noticed any great despondency.
"What I have begun to notice is small numbers of pupils dropping out of trips, say the ones abroad that involve a substantial amount of money."
Mary Forrest, director of Crosscare Teen Counselling, says it is "too early to see what the impact will be on teenagers . . Only in the last two months really are we beginning to see some whose parents have lost their jobs. A lot of teenagers though don't really understand how the adult world impinges on them."
She says teenagers have not had to worry about money in the past decade. "It will become an issue. Lack of money can be very powerful in terms of extra strain on families. I would be worried about the impacts we may see."
Back at St Mary's, Ciara and Sarah remain optimistic. "Recessions usually last a year or two, so this one will pass and the good days will come around again," smiles Ciara.