I am sitting in my front room at home. In front of me is the ancient, slightly dilapidated fireplace that I have grown accustomed to since we moved in in 1989. Then there are the sprawling bookshelves, several paintings on the walls and a mad looking glass lamp that the kids and the dogs are just queuing up to smash. To my left is the cabinet that houses what remains of my CD collection. It is comforting to sit in your own front room and be surrounded by familiar things.

How would I feel if things got so bad that we had to sell our house or worse, have it repossessed? In the present climate, there must be many others who are wondering along the same lines.

Last week, Irish Life and Permanent reported that their mortgage arrears were significantly up in 2008. They also said that 8% of their mortgages are in negative equity. Housing minister Michael Finneran indicated that, generally speaking, fewer than 10% of repossession orders lead to repossession. Figures published by the Irish Banking Federation revealed that a total of 96 repossessions took place in 2008. Of these, approximately half were voluntary repossessions, and a significant proportion related to investment properties.

These figures are probably meant to be reassuring, but that was 2008. Already, 2009 looks painfully grim.

However, it is good to see the minister acknowledging the trauma that is affecting so many mortgage payers as unemployment bites and the recession plays havoc with our ability to repay debts. The real hidden trauma is going on inside the heads of those of us who are worried about the future. Worry has no useful function. It reduces our spirits and optimism and destroys our confidence. In extreme cases, it can make us ill. But we can't help ourselves doing it. And at present, we have a great excuse to worry.

Recently, I have spent too much time thinking about my family home, and a mortgage that seems to have broken free of its shackles like some mutant creature in an X-Men movie. It is as though the home that we once found so comforting and familiar has set out to crush us. Is our notion of home totally restricted to owning a material possession made of bricks and mortar? Why are Irish people so obsessed with owning their own homes? Wouldn't be all much better off if we rented?

Surely it is our final hurdle on the road to becoming true Europeans.

Perhaps, but I still remember vividly the thrill when my wife and I bought our little 1920s semi-d. At the time, almost everyone warned us not to buy. The price will come down we were assured. But we were young and cocky and we went ahead and bought it. A week later the price went up, so we counted ourselves lucky.

I was delighted when we signed the deeds of ownership. "It's ours now," I announced proudly. The lady solicitor was quick to burst my bubble. "Don't be so sure. Until you pay off the mortgage, the house belongs to the building society."

I hated her for saying it, but she was right then, and she is right now. We still haven't paid off the mortgage mainly because, like many other families, we have used our home as equity to build an extension and to fund home improvements.

I and my wife are gainfully employed, but like everybody these days, I am painfully aware that this can change overnight in the current chaos. Lots of permanent jobs are disappearing, along with our reliance and trust in certain establishment figures such as bankers.

So what would you do if things got desperate and the bailiffs came after your home? Settle up meekly or have a Rambo episode and bolt up the doors and windows, perhaps taking to the roof armed with homemade bow and arrows. As if. But it's difficult to think that one would surrender a home without putting up some kind of a fight.

I hope that the minister's recent safeguards will help us all keep things in perspective and steer responsible parties into doing the right thing.

In the midst of uncertainty, it is easy to forget that a home is about more than the building you inhabit. A home is about the people you live with. Your wife and kids. Your family. Your friends, partner or loved ones. You love people, not houses.

None of the apartments I lived in over the years meant a darn thing. They were places where I rested and ate and did laundry. I had no emotional attachment to them.

However, logic disappears when I think of the house in Howth where I grew up. I can recall the sensations, sights and sounds of my youth. I can see my family members as their younger selves. I reconnect with long forgotten feelings and memories, even some I would prefer not to recall. There was a sense of permanence about our lives in that house just as there is with the home where I now reside.

The truth is that the house you live in becomes part of your identity, whether you want it to or not.

Michael Clifford returns next week