The extent of the fall in house prices has become clearer with the publication last Friday of the sixmonthly report of the Permanent TSB/ESRI houseprice index.

Nationally they went down 2.6% in the first six months of the year but they will certainly have fallen by much more in some areas, and by much less in others .

While 2.6% sounds like a soft landing, it's the biggest half-yearly drop since the dotcom crash caused house prices to fall in 2001. And with inflation running at 5% and the repayments on a mortgage now 43.7% higher than they were a year ago, for a lot of people this is very tough indeed. Making high interest repayments on a 100% mortgage on a house that's worth less than you paid for it is no financial picnic.

These latest figures won't add to the sum of happiness in our national mood. The latest survey from IIB and the ESRI into "consumer sentiment" tells us our nerves are shot . . . the most shot they've been since 2003 in fact. Fears of layoffs, an economic downturn and cracks in the construction industry (employment in this sector was down 1.1% last month) . . . not to mention our mortgages squeezing every cent we earn . . . have left us in 'feel bad' mode.

Add to that the fact the stock market's just taken another pummelling after a brief rally. . . Really, with all the attendant fears for pensions and savings, you'd have to wonder if there's any point to Ireland Inc at all. Now, it seems, with foot-and-mouth disease in Britain and floods everywhere but here (so far), food prices could be going up too.

Like the government, we all need a holiday. A holiday not just from the weather but also from gloomy statistical overload. Still, things can't be that bad when as a nation we managed to take 1.575 million visits abroad in the first quarter of the year . . . 58% for holidays . . . spending 324m between us!