Sarah Corcoran, a 27-year-old advertising executive, could not face spending another winter in the cold, dated, one-bedroom apartment in Clontarf. She had agreed to move there with her boyfriend because it was the best they could find with their €1,100-a-month budget. But thanks to a slowing rental market, the couple have now secured a two-bedroom apartment in the same area for the same rent.

“Back in February 2008, when I was sharing a two-bed with a friend, the rent was €1,500 and I was really struggling to pay it, but now I find it much more manageable,” Corcoran said.

“We do most of our shopping at our local SuperValu, because they’ve started doing great deals, such as half-price roast beef with free potatoes or carrots. And I’m addicted to the Marks & Spencer dine in for two offers. The food is great and cheap as chips.”

Corcoran’s salary has been frozen but she is one of the 1.97m people who still have a job in Ireland and so she is benefiting from the fastest decline in the cost of living since The Great Depression.

Few are fully immune from the deepest recession to hit the country since that era. But those still on the same earnings as they had during the Celtic tiger, who did not accumulate crippling personal debt, and were not decimated by the stock market collapse, are taking quiet satisfaction from getting more bang for their bucks and having money left over from the slide in mortgage or rental costs.

They are also enjoying the demise of Ireland’s affluenza and its pressure to splash out €200 on a wedding gift, attend weekend hen parties in five-star hotels, or buy a new car to keep up with the Joneses.

It is no surprise that the country’s top bankers, politicians, barristers and debt-collectors are withstanding the recession well. But for many of the country’s white-collar workers, life in recession Ireland is not that bad either. Harping on about it, however, when friends and family are losing their jobs or having their working week reduced to three days, is not an option, especially when the country is being derided as Europe’s economic basket case.

“You’re not going to say the recession’s not too bad when your neighbour just got let go,” said Kevin Denny, a senior economics lecturer at University College Dublin. “You want to be seen to be sharing the pain. It’s the new chic.” But even if they cannot shout about it, how many are secretly happy to see the bad times roll?

Last week, Dublin dropped out of the top 20 list of the world’s most expensive cities, according to the latest cost-of-living survey by Mercer, a global consultancy firm. The capital was ranked the 25th most expensive city in the world, in dollar terms, down nine places from a year ago as food and housing costs fell and the euro strengthened against the dollar. The survey, designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for expatriate employees, contrasts with the boom years, when Dublin was in the mid to high teens.

Ireland recorded the sharpest drop in the cost of living across Europe last month, with consumer prices down 5.4% in June year on year, led by a 46% slump in mortgage costs after the European Central Bank reduced interest rates to a record low.

A 3% drop in food prices could be followed by further falls as the country’s supermarkets wage an all-out price war. Last month, Tesco promised to cut the cost of a weekly shop by up to one third by extending border-store price cuts to the rest of the country, joining Dunnes, SuperValu and Marks & Spencer in trying to lure back customers from discount German operators Aldi and Lidl.

Restaurants, too, are vying for custom. Balzac Brasserie at La Stampa Hotel, which served champagne risotto for ¤20 during the boom, is now offering a three-course dinner for ¤25.

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