Seamus Coffey adds his thoughts (and some rather cool charts, must figure out how he makes those) to my Guardian post this week on his excellent blog, Economic Incentives. Money quote here:
"It is more probably more accurate to say that we have a “debt problem” rather than a “demand problem” though the two or obviously related. Consumption has fallen because the demand has shifted from consumption to paying down debt. This pattern is likely to continue."
There's a lot more to be written about the relationship between debt, consumption, and demand in the Irish economy.