Joanne Byrne, Director, Presence PR

Last week my friend Mel rang me from Sydney. She talked to me as if I had suffered a death in the family. "How are you? How are things? Are you OK?" And I found myself telling her in no uncertain terms that no one had died, that we are not the first and won't be last to fight off a recession, and pointing out that we were not the only country in the midst of a downturn – Ireland isn't on its own. To which Mel replied: "Then why does it just sound like it is?"

In my office no one is allowed use the R word ('current economic climate' is allowed) because I believe strongly that 'this too shall pass'. Past generations have suffered economic meltdown. However, this time the difference is that there is nowhere to go. Everyone is in the same leaky boat, but we Irish have our wit, our humour and our guile to get us from this place of doom and gloom to the sunny shores of prosperity once more.

In these times, we need to be realistic about what is achievable in the short term but we cannot afford to dismiss long-term goals for this country. We need leadership, real leadership for these very real times. We need our politicians to put the country's good before the party's good, we need accountability and we all need to realise that we are going to have to work harder, much harder. But as my dad says: "A hard's day work never hurt anyone".