An Irishman's Diary

SURELY the Germans are mocking us with that story (World News, yesterday) about “Anastasia”, a young woman who, according to …

SURELY the Germans are mocking us with that story (World News, yesterday) about "Anastasia", a young woman who, according to Bildnewspaper, has been threatened with repossession of her breast implants by the ex-boyfriend who paid for them? I have taken the trouble of looking up the original version of the report. Which, rather distractingly, is accompanied by several pictures of the said Anastasia (20), posing in among other things a variety of swimming costumes and a tight leopard-skin-print dress.

But despite also reading the text – haltingly, with the help of my German-English dictionary – several times, I still can’t decide if this is a real news story, or an elaborate satire on Ireland’s economic woes. After all, it is – just like ours – a tale of boom and bust.

According to Bild, Anastasia's impressive bosoms were paid for by a €4,379 advance from her boyfriend, identified only as "Carsten M".

But there was one condition: that she remain loyal to him for a year after the operation. This the winsome, hazel-eyed brunette could not or would not do. So now, Carsten M is looking for his money back, on pain of repossessing her enhancements.

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And there, in a nutshell, you have Ireland’s economic plight. Maybe it’s the stress of recent events, but there is even something about Anastasia’s photographs (leopard-skin dress aside) that reminds one of the Celtic Tiger at its height: confident, brash, perhaps a little too sassy for her own good.

Of course, the most obvious thing that she and the Ireland of that era have in common are those in-your-face, double-digit growth figures. Which, in each case, were only partly based on reality. And which, in one case at least, have proved unsustainable.

It must be said that, unlike Anastasia’s, Ireland’s period of massive expansion had many different contributors. But undoubtedly, our since-estranged partners in Germany did at least help start the process by giving us the money to improve our infrastructure. So we can hardly complain now when “Angela M” – as we’ll call the plaintiff – seeks to protect her investment.

There is fault on both sides, it’s true. Maybe our current problems could have been averted had we remained true to Germany, by following the “Berlin model” (not to be confused with Anastasia) of development, as it was called. Instead, as everyone knows, we started making eyes at the Boston model, and it at us, with disastrous results.

On the other hand, our former partners were unreasonable in expecting us to put up, post-expansion, with the low interest rates we had before they paid for our attractive implants. In light of which surgery, much higher interest rates should have been both expected and allowed. Whereas locking us into a straight-jacket of continued low interest suited Germany alone. No wonder the relationship turned sour.

WITH ITS hidden message, the story of Anastasia is a bit like a modern Grimm’s fairy-tale.

I’m reminded, for some reason, of that controversial speech a few years ago in which a Dublin-based foreign diplomat joked about how coarse Ireland had become during the boom.

Who was that again? Oh yes, the outgoing German ambassador, since retired. I wonder what he’s doing now? Not writing satirical news reports for racy-but-political-influential Berlin newspapers, I hope.

The very name " Bild" seems to mock us, given the construction crash. No doubt this is just oversensitivity, or the effects of post-traumatic stress. But even assuming the similarities between Anastasia's story and Ireland's are entirely accidental, comparisons may still be enlightening.

Both parties are now ostensibly faced with the prospect of a grim, deflationary cycle to atone for past mistakes. And that, unfortunately, is where the parallels break down. Because Anastasia seems to have very good prospects of paying off her debts – she has already returned €3,000 – and thus avoiding any painful cuts.

Whereas, despite our Government embarking on an altogether different kind of front-loading, without anaesthetic, Ireland’s debt problem only seems to get worse with every day. It seems increasingly unlikely that we can ever pay off the money owed, unless we take a different tack and, as many economists advocate, inflate our way out of the mess.

Again, breast enhancement seems to suggest a way forward. As Bertie Ahern might have put it, had he been a plastic surgeon, it may be time for the bust to get even buster. To wit: perhaps we need to outdo Anastasia and go for the Double-D – “default and devalue” – option. If nothing else, it would be interesting to see if the EU’s support mechanisms could cope with the strain.