Perhaps my inner masochist is revealing itself, but I rather enjoyed the budget speech. I particularly liked the call for patriotism at the end. In fact, I actually cheered. What a smashing way to end a lashing.

Yes, minister! That’s what we’ve been missing all these years. Because of our mediocre soccer team and our long losing streak in Eurovision, Irish patriotism has been sadly lacking. If hard times are what we need to bind us together, then sbe it. We can take the pain. I don’t mind cutbacks. Just tell me, minister, how this humble housewife can do her part to save the country.

I was reared in the 1980s, and it left a lasting impression. I never quite managed to develop a sense of entitlement.

I bought the clothes, the shoes and the facials. I ate out a lot, and paid other people to look after my children. But always I had the uneasy feeling that someone was about to phone up and say: “There’s been a mistake and we’ve just discovered you’ve been using the good towels intended for the guests. Here — use these old rags instead.”

Now that I’ve finally been caught out, it’s all quite a relief, and I rather relish the prospect of a blitz spirit. So minister, I’m in.

The problem is that there appears to be some confusion as to how best the housewives of Ireland should act in the national interest. The government needs unity on this issue, so Brian Lenihan needs to have a quick chat with the Greens, especially Trevor Sargent. A couple of weeks ago the horticulture minister said we belong to a useless generation. Actually, he said: “We probably are the most useless generation ever to have strode the face of the earth.” This is “because of many people’s inability to do practical tasks such as mending a broken tyre”.

I blushed reading it, because the bicycle I bought in a rush of environmental consciousness and enthusiasm for physical fitness is out in the shed with a flat tyre. I could mend a puncture easily when I was 10, but I’m not sure how to go about it now. Could it really involve a basin of water and old spoons? I dropped into our local garage and asked the mechanics if they’d have a crack at it but they looked at me as if I was bonkers. I’m not mad; I’ve simply become accustomed to outsourcing certain tasks.

Sargent says I must change my ways. He urged us to “adopt a second world war lifestyle and approach to consumption in the current climate”. On the one hand, that approach appeals to me. I took up the hems on my son’s school trousers myself. I’ve got a kitchen garden on the go, and hens are my next purchase. I don’t mind having a crack at painting the kitchen — didn’t I paint my own bedroom several times when I was a teenager?

The problem is that if I Do It Myself, I may bring the economy crashing down.

When I recently discussed the issue on the radio with Moore McDowell, a UCD economist, , he warned of the grave threat to the economy if we all followed Sargent’s advice. Capitalism appears to have outlasted communism by about 20 years. This relative success is due to the theory of comparative advantage and specialisation first proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.

The theory and practice of comparative advantage is that people and countries should identify what they’re good at, what earns them most money, and then stick to it. They should specialise in those products and buy from others what goods or services they decide to abandon. That way, everyone will ultimately make more money.

If you’re a senior counsel with a kitchen that needs painting, you could take the day off work to do it. Or you might earn €10,000 down at the Four Courts while you could pay a painter €200 to do the kitchen. Not only does it pay you to pay someone else to do the job, you’re boosting the economy by spreading your money around. Now the painter can buy consumer goods and services. So the lawyer’s money trickles down the line, making us all a little richer.

The opportunity factor for women is particularly high. Instead of sewing — badly — the hem on my son’s trousers, I would have been better employed paying someone else to do the dressmaking while I scribbled out a column.

The bottom line is that Trevor Sargent is both perfectly right and fundamentally wrong. We are a useless generation. We outsource basic jobs so frequently that certain skills, once common, will become increasingly scarce. But by doing so, we are actually helping the economy.

Consumption might be our spiritual downfall but it is also our economic salvation. This is why Lenihan needs to tell Sargent to zip it and make sure that us citizens don’t get confused by his budget message. The government needs to make cutbacks but it’s vital that households don’t. If the country is to have a chance, the outsourcing must go on.

Cleaning, decorating, repairing and baking are all tasks that came naturally to the 1950s housewife. But we were poor and miserable in the 1950s. If we don’t want to be poor again, the bad housewife can be the country’s great hope.

This might seem counter-intuitive and you’re probably still in a post-budget anger phase, visualising all the cutbacks you’ll have to make around the house this winter. Stop and look at it this way: the budget wasn’t so bad at all.

For the past 10 years, the government has been flinging money indiscriminately at people who could do without it. Special Savings Incentive Account interest, a special payment for children under six, over-70s medical cards and inequitable tax allowances for high earners were all handed over as populist election winners. The money was crudely distributed and is being more crudely recouped. But I can’t help feeling it’s a case of easy come, easy go. What Fianna Fail giveth, Fianna Fail taketh away.

The trick to our future success is to get over the snatching back of what we never should have had in the first place. Some people are poor, but if you’re reading this paper, I bet you’re not. However, if you start acting poor, we’re really done for.

The spirit of the blitz is all very well, but ultimately streets were bombed into rubble. If we don’t want to see our economy reduced to rubble, then we need to keep spending.

Useless citizens of Ireland unite. Your economy needs you.

sarah.carey@sunday-times.ie

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