Who put the ‘I’ in PIGS? We, the Irish did – along with Italy, apparently. As one of the more insensitive acronyms to come about as part of the financial crisis, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain have found themselves in the trough together, sniffing desperately for the truffles that will lift them out of the mess in which they find themselves. In the meantime, however, perhaps us swine can help make each other’s lives more bearable until we strike gold?

In an unfortunate case of life imitating art, or more accurately, an iPhone app, the walls around us are beginning to cave in, as the Angry Birds of Europe and further afield are hell bent on our total destruction. Far from wanting to huff, and puff, and blow our houses down, the wolf in the modern day version of the Three Little Pigs (the fourth one doesn’t pay any rent and therefore isn’t officially listed) is more concerned with repossession. And what are we pigs managing to do about it – little more than to survive by the hair on our chiny chin chins.

But no more I say! Us pigs must formulate a plan, and work together to see it through. While we Irish had, for many years, demonstrated great foresight in trying our best to keep the economies of Portugal, Greece, and Spain afloat as part of our annual search for the sun, the Celtic Tiger gave us the gall to want more. No longer content with San Miguel, Linekers Bar, and headaches by the pool, the words “budget”, “package”, and “holiday” found themselves in fewer and fewer sentences uttered by the “new” Irish.

As the snowboarding and scuba-diving equipment from holidays past gather dust in the attics of homes throughout Ireland, us pigs need to band together, and create holidays for each other “on the cheap”. We need to open our homes to our struggling European neighbours, ensuring they have a holiday that they will never forget. And what should this new venture be called? “When Pigs Fly”, of course!

I can see it now! For a fee not much greater than one of those “special price” watches we Irish bought many a time in P, G, or S; visitors to our shores can enjoy such Irish delicacies as boiled pig’s feet, washed down by our finest Poitín. This homemade paint stripper of a drink will not only cleanse the palette of the taste of trotter by stripping a layer of skin clean off the inside of the mouth, it will also render our visitors incoherent and comatose until the plane comes to take them home. Cost of holiday – €10 plus flights and medical bills.

Our Portuguese neighbours could repay the favour with their own budget dalliance. For an ultra low price, the Irish traveller can be dropped into the countries capital, Lisbon, where they can learn firsthand what it is to protest against government. For the particularly budget conscious traveller, accommodation can be booked via the Portuguese Police. Cost of holiday – €10 plus flights, solicitor fees, and a notebook and pen.

Greece can put together a nice island hopping package, which skimps on costs by having visitors swim between them. Long periods in the water will not only improve fitness considerably, but will increase the chance of catching some fish, thus reducing the food bill significantly. Cost of holiday – €5 plus flights and a fishing net.

Last but not least, Spain can offer the festival feeling of Oxygen or Electric Picnic to Irish visitors at a fraction of the cost, and with considerably less music. With little more than a tent and a healthy dose of patience, visitors can experience firsthand what it is to be an “Indignant One” by camping out for long periods of time until something happens. Cost of holiday – €5 plus flights, tent, and a good book.

So there we have it! Being one of the PIGS doesn’t mean that you have to go without a holiday this year, it just means you’ll have to do without all the unnecessary nonsense associated with holidays of old, such as having a good time and enjoying a safe return. Mine’s a San Miguel! Cheers!

While economist Morgan Kelly may view Patrick Honohan, Governor of the Central Bank, as engaging in the “costliest mistake ever made by an Irish person”, the brother Edmund, Master of the High Court, recently highlighted a cost much greater, and one which cannot be righted by a thousand bailouts. Ireland’s recession, and the resultant pursuance of those in debt as a result of it by the banks and other lending institutions “to the bitter end” is causing some to take their own lives; a tragedy which will only get worse if left unchecked.

Never before have so many been affected by a recession in this country. While the lower classes will always be hit the hardest, no one has been spared this time around, and never before have so many sections of society been tied down with such enormous debt. While there are those who may feel that the Celtic Tiger roared by them at the time, never getting to share in the benefits it afforded many, those who gained significantly, and subsequently lost, are equally, if not more at risk from the comedown after the artificial high.

Ireland has always suffered from a disproportionately high level of suicide in comparison to other countries, with young males being especially susceptible. Despite our increase in wealth and greater ability to distract ourselves during the boom time, this problem never went away. Now that the money has run out and the realisation has hit many that the only thing they ever truly owned was their debt, things are getting worse, with our national rate of suicide rising by a quarter over the last three years.

Recent statistics released from the Central Bank shows that nearly 50,000 residential mortgages are now in arrears of 90 days or greater. While this number does not equate to 50,000 families affected, due to some having multiple properties, this remains a worryingly large number. The fact that some households now have multiple mortgages that they cannot repay acts as an almost unbelievable reminder to a time when people who would never have dreamt of owning more than one property started to collect them like kiddies’ football cards, having gotten caught up in the buzzword that was the property “portfolio”.

The emotional turmoil and distress suffered by many in this situation starts long before the first mortgage payment is missed. When the boom ended and negative equity reared its ugly head, the struggle to keep their heads above water began. Bills were still being paid, just, as discretionary expenditure became a thing of the past. Treading water for so long soon grows tiresome, however. Then came the dreaded day when the financial calculations no longer added up, and mortgage payments started to be missed. It is at this time, when already at their lowest ebb, that the banks typically step in.

The Central Bank’s revised code of conduct on mortgage arrears, which came into effect in January of this year, requires lenders to work with those in trouble. According to the Central Bank’s director of consumer protection, Bernard Sheridan, a manageable and sustainable solution can be agreed “where appropriate”. It is these two words that are of great cause for concern, for the failure to help those who are struggling can leave those same people feeling like they have run out of options. Who within the banking institutions are qualified enough to determine the emotional wounds which have been inflicted on those whom they pursue? Who can determine the tipping point at which some debtors can no longer grin and bear it, and can no longer accept the complicity that Brian Lenihans’ idiotic idiom that “We All Partied” implies?

While the chief executive of the Irish Banking Federation, Pat Farrell, accused Edmund Honohan of being too emotive in his description of those who commit suicide under the burden of debt, is it not emotion and compassion that is in too short a supply? The harsh reality is that this time next year there are a number of social welfare and jobseeker allowance payments which will no longer be made. Not because the recipient has managed to “validate” themselves in the eyes of our government and banks by no longer taking but once again contributing through finding work, and not because they have resigned themselves to emigration in order to keep the ember than remains of their hopes and dreams from being extinguished completely. Instead, these payments will remain uncollected because at some point their recipients decided that they had been squeezed just that little bit too much, and that the Ireland of 2011 had not given them an out.

While our economists will continue to debate if the property and financial crisis could have been spotted earlier, Ireland’s crisis should come as a surprise to no one. As long ago as 2009, President Mary McAleese underlined the need to invest in suicide prevention programmes to help those for whom unemployment and debt were taking their toll. Having already heard ad nauseam of the political blame games in Leinster House, of pension levies and the banking big wigs who “escaped”, the level to which ordinary working people have been affected on an emotional level by the crisis still remains largely unreported, and infinitely worse, unresolved.

In 2007, then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern displayed our nation’s laissez faire attitude towards suicide and its prevention as he spoke about those who expressed doubt regarding the future of our economy, saying “I don’t know how people who engage in that don’t commit suicide”. Four years on, we need to remember that our greatest asset is, and always has been, our people. The citizens of this Republic must be protected at all costs, for they are truly priceless.

NOTE: A recent assignment as part of my journalism course required me to write a piece which offered an opinion which I didn’t believe. To this end, I wrote as convincing an argument as I could muster for why the Queen of England should not visit Ireland. Below is the vitriolic result. Enjoy!

May is going to be a particularly expensive month for the Irish exchequer as both Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama pay visit to our penniless shores. While I will be the first to extend a céad míle fáilte to the US President, the undoubted leader of the free world, I would be tempted to utter a less flattering Irish phrase to Britain’s monarch.

At a time when we can least afford it, our country will have to outlay approximately €25 million for the pleasure, the majority of which will go towards protecting the Queen, whose 4 days in the Republic smacks of an elderly relative who overstays their welcome. While Joe Higgins of the United Left Alliance may not get his wish that she pays towards her “bed and breakfast” at a time when Ireland is “figuratively, almost sleeping rough”, it should be noted that Barack Obama will only be on Irish soil for a period of hours. Why so short, I hear you ask? Because he actually has a job to get back to!

If our binning of the last Government has shown anything, it’s that Ireland has finally grown tired of useless figureheads which don’t actually do anything. In this regard, why splurge cash we don’t have on England’s equivalent, who recently had the gall to spend taxpayers’ money on the wedding of her grandson, at a time when England continues to deal with its own recession? On the same weekend as the she was happily spending other people’s money with reckless abandon, Barack Obama, our second VIP of the month, was ridding the world of one of its worse terrorists, and helping us all to sleep better at night.

It should, of course, be remembered that whatever the outlay for protecting these foreign dignitaries is, a healthy 5.8% should be added to the bill when we are to consider the real cost to us, the Irish taxpayer, as we are blowing the IMF’s money and not our own, which we are paying top dollar for. Having had to go crawling to the EU/IMF with our begging bowl few will argue that it could be put to better use than on protecting the ageing dinosaur that is the British monarchy.

While a clearly delusional Enda Kenny continues to tell anyone with ears that Ireland is open for business, the working classes continue to suffer. Having recently spotted a bunch of Gardaí hovering over a drain in the city centre, my initial thought was that they had finally been reduced to supplementing their much depleted incomes by searching for loose change. Instead, they were busy spending the majority of their annual budget on sealing manhole covers in preparation for our impending visitors.

While it is only right that the US President is protected from those who wish to cause him harm, especially in the light of his triumphant victory over Osama bin Laden, the arrival of Mrs. Windsor does nothing but expose her and our fellow countrymen and women to an otherwise avoidable threat. The RIRA and their ilk, with the blood of PSNI innocent Ronan Kerr still dripping from their hands, will have no problem adding a few “Free Staters” to their list of casualties if it means getting their shot at their perceived enemy.

While the Queens visit may bolster tourism to Ireland from the UK, we should be aware of the fallout between England and Ireland, should something happen during her time here. The level of anti-English sentiment that still exists in Ireland would leave the Irish government facing an uphill battle in convincing the British that they hadn’t colluded with the paramilitaries in much the same way that many believe the British did in times past.

If I could sum up my feelings for her visit to Ireland, it would be “Queen there, done that, we have bigger fish to fry!”