Bad news may have been the order of the day for some time now, but this week it must be acknowledged that a definite sense of the sun peeking out through the clouds to lift our spirits is palpable.
It may be hard to put our finger exactly on what is happening but the important thing at least is that something is happening — and that something is good.
For so long the country has remained in a state of paralysis as people feared doing anything at all that might rock the boat to more dangerous levels. Now however, the population is mobilising. Young and old are protesting — students against the reintroduction of college fees and the elderly against any tampering whatsoever with their precious and very necessary pensions.
Nice little nuggets of good news stories in the areas of employment and work are also coming to the fore. Yes, jobs are still being lost left, right, and centre; hundreds of people locally in Baxter and other businesses are being invited to take redundancy, and as for anyone working in the public service right now, they might be well advised to hold tight to the chair they sit on for fear it too is thrown on the bonfire.
Yet this week we also heard some amazing announcements such as that from Ernst & Young accounting, which is to create 300 new jobs in order to meet demand for its services and to match its assertion that 'the economy has definitely turned’.
Additionally, 100 new jobs are being created in Dublin thanks to online sports betting company Betfair, while on a more local level, some weeks back we also had inspiring jobs news thanks to Hollister in Ballina opening 200 new positions and 50 construction jobs.
In this week's Mayo Advertiser business pages we further celebrate the welcome news from sports nutrition company Bioshell Teo in north Mayo, which has announced 20 new jobs; a new Ford dealership for Castlebar is also to create a minimum of 20 new jobs come January; and out on the Moneen road the Kaptec call-centre is set to recruit eight new staff, all in all making for some terrific bit-by-bit, feelgood moments.
Meanwile, displaying a confidence of heroic proportions in the future of this great little country of ours, the entrepreneur behind Dr Quirkey's Good Time Emporium in Dublin, Richard Quirke, has just had planning approved for a €460m project to build Europe's largest combined sporting, leisure, and gaming complex on an 800 acre site in rural Tipperary, to include a state-of-the-art racecourse, casino, 15,000 seater underground entertainment complex, 500 bedroom five-star hotel, 18-hole golf course, equestrian centre, greyhound track with 7,000 capacity stadium, stables, and a replica of the White House in Washington. Take a breath!
It has been quite some time since we heard anything so ambitious and, whether it proves to be a runner in reality or not, just hearing the sheer scope and scale of the plan is so refreshing. You might think there was no recession at all and indeed, closer to home, further evidence of recession fight-back was also very much evident at the McWilliam Park in Claremorris over the weekend, when more than 300 local business people and locals united to celebrate the hotel's fourth birthday in happy-to-be-alive-I'm-a-survivor style, making for a major networking session and wonderful night all round. Well done to all involved.
Therefore, despite the fact the country is still facing bankruptcy, the circulating rumours that yet another leading financial institution is to hit the wall, and a looming horror budget set to slash everything from child benefit to teacher-pupil ratios, all is not as negative as some would have us believe.
What cannot be denied is that the recession has turned the microscope on everything, exposing gaps and inefficiencies desperately needing plugging. Put another way however this also means opportunities for enterprise abound. People simply need to tune in, take stock, and identify which particular gaps they can fill.
