Roughly a fifth of the population of the Republic is counting its pennies once the monthly bills are paid, this according to shocking new figures compiled by the Irish League of Credit Unions.
The ILCU, in what it calls its "What's Left Tracker," has calculated that once the bills are covered those who have been most affected by the recession, roughly 750,000 people, have about €70 euro left for what could be described as personal disposable income.
The survey found that an additional 210,000 people are so stuck for cash that their income does not even cover their basic bills for light, hear and the roof over their heads.
The ILCU study found that 428,000 people were of the view that there was no future for their family in the Republic.
The Irish Examiner reported the director of the website MoneyCoach.ie, Frank Conway, as saying that, over the course of the last three years, Irish consumers had seen their net take home pay "attacked savagely."
"Incomes have been cut, bonuses and overtime have largely disappeared and jobs have been lost on a massive scale. We have huge unemployment problems as well as under-employment ones too.
"On top of that, as wages have been falling, inflation is again taking off and this is now creating a dangerous spiral of wage drops and price rises that will continue to strangle the financial well-being of consumers," Conway said.
