Joe the Irish plumber is feeling the pressure. As the screws tightened on the construction industry many who were subcontracting on big building sites were sacked when the work dried up. Others are still owed a fortune by contractors and have had to let their own men go. But Ireland's "Joes" are a resilient lot, one plumber even coming through the trauma of a heart attack brought about by the stress of being owed money.

Now it's small jobs that are keeping them going as householders decide to repair and service old boilers rather than buy new ones in these cash-strapped days.

During the US presidential election Joe the Plumber became a potent symbol of a middle class America hit hard by the recession and the credit crunch.

Barack Obama, then a presidential candidate, while trying to explain his tax plan to voters, singled out Joe the Plumber and the impact his policies would have in stimulating the economy.

"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. If you've got a plumbing business, you're gonna be better off. . . if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody, and I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody," Mr Obama said.

His words have a resonance for Irish plumbers and tradesmen cut adrift by recession.

Plumber Joe McGuigan, Castlepollard

It's quiet now, very quiet. I was doing a lot of work on building sites in and around Longford and Westmeath, all over this part of the world. I had three lads working for me, but things began to really tighten up just before the Christmas. The builders weren't pushing as they usually would before Christmas to get work finished before the break. And there was no word of any money being paid for work done.

I am owed money from a number of places, but you just can't get it. I would have had two or three sites going at the one time, 20 houses here or maybe up to 80 houses on a site from first fixing to completion of the house. I'm owed about €100,000 all told from various jobs. The main contractors are saying they haven't got the money and a lot of them are saying they are going to give it up and go bankrupt.

Some are saying they are just waiting for the banks to free up some cash. All my workers have gone. All gone. Decent lads every one of them, but I had to let them go. These days it's small jobs that are keeping me going. Household jobs and that kind of thing. You can be lucky and if you have a reputation for good work some work comes in.

I actually went in to see if I could sign on when I had no work. You are entitled to it. You have paid your PRSI and all your taxes, but you have to be assessed and all that before you get anything. So much paperwork.

I have two children and I'm 48 so in the prime of my life for work. I don't like all these attacks on ordinary workers in the public sector and I don't like to see them getting a hammering either. It should be people at the top who are made to pay. Those who can afford it and who made a fortune during the boom.

The banks were a disaster for me. They will give you anything bar a line of credit. They told me to take out a loan. I told them I didn't want to take out a loan. I found it so frustrating that I took everything out. I've been in the business for 14 years. I'm going to struggle on and see how it goes.

If things don't get better I'll do something else, sell up or go abroad or do something.

Plumber Joe Parle, Wicklow

It could be worse for us. We are doing just about OK. We do a lot of maintenance work and even during the building boom we tended to stick with that. Even so, things are tightening. Schools don't have any money, for example, so that kind of work on public buildings is tightening up. I heard yesterday of another plumber I know who was told to get his men off a building site so while I'm ticking over I know there are a lot of other plumbers in a worse situation.

For the bulk of plumbers these are tough times. We need a bit of initiative from the Government. In London, if you want to do maintenance work on your house you can get grants to refurbish older houses in terms of making them safe and more energy efficient. We should do the same here. It would provide a lot of work and would save a fortune in energy.

I'm not talking about major refurbishment, but things like insulation and maintaining and servicing boilers or replacing inefficient boilers with new ones which are much more fuel efficient. I'm surprised the Greens haven't been pushing for it.

These are simple things which could cut energy costs in a big way. Personally, I had a heart attack just about a year ago and the fact is that it was due to stress because I was owed too much money. I never drank or smoked, but I had a close call. The artery was 98 per cent blocked. While people were talking about the Celtic Tiger and huge money and all that, we didn't see it. The developers and the banks got all of that. Maybe we would get the odd very good week, but apart from that it was all bullshit.

When I had the heart attack I passed over the running of the business to my son, also called Joe, and he has one or two lads with him when he needs them.

The big thing these days is that you are going to be waiting a while to get paid for jobs. Over the years I learned never to overextend myself in the banks.

You have to work inside the margins. That was something I learned in the Sixties, never mind the Eighties. I'm 64 but when I was 22 or 23 years of age I got into trouble on a bit of work and they advised me to take out a loan. I resisted the temptation and worked a lot of late nights instead to get myself out of a hole. It was the best thing I ever did and that's been my way since.

I have been shocked to see how much people were borrowing from the banks in recent years. Things couldn't keep going they way they were -- everyone could see that. We are in a crisis now, but I can remember a time when we had nothing at all. Sooner or later we are going to get off the ground again.

Plumber Joe Keogh, Dublin

I remember listening to Barack Obama and John McCain arguing about Joe the Plumber during the presidential election and I had to laugh, although I suppose it was meant to signify the ordinary working man. I would always be more involved with the maintenance side of the trade, repairs and sales of boilers to domestic customers and that kind of thing.

Luckily enough that side of the business has been going grand. The funny thing is that when things get quiet on the new boiler side of the business then things pick up on the maintenance side. People start getting their boiler serviced rather than replaced because money is a bit tighter. They will hold off speculating on a new boiler.

I work on my own so I haven't got to worry about finding a wage for someone else. It's the plumbers on the building sites who have been hit hardest and you would feel sorry for them. It was tough enough work even in the good times.

About 90 per cent of my work would be for private householders and 10 per cent commercial work. Because of that I haven't been badly stung in terms of being owed a lot of money. I wouldn't do work for big builders and it was the plumbers who were subcontracting for the big developers who got badly burned.

There are a lot of plumbers out there looking for work, but if you are working on gas boilers you have to have the proper certification so I'm not feeling too much competition from that quarter. The new regulations are fairly tight and rightly so. You have to know what you are doing when you are working with gas.

Plumber Joe Doolaghty, Tulla, Co Clare

We were working on schemes and big sites and all that, but all that work has dried up. One of them went bust altogether. I'm owed a heap of money from various bits of work we did. We would have been subcontractors doing all the plumbing on sites -- the first and second fixing. At the height of the work I had four men working for me and now I have one working on a part-time basis. I am trying to tip away doing a lot of private work and there are small pieces of work to be done. The big problem is that there is an awful lot of men looking for the same work.

Some people are changing over to the new, fuel-efficient condenser boilers, not a whole pile, but enough to keep me in work for the time being. I've been here in Clare all my life. Plumbers were never making a big amount of money during the boom, it was plasterers and blocklayers who got the best of it. They had the cream. Our prices never went up that much.

If you have a story of the recession to tell, write to Jerome Reilly, News Desk, Sunday Independent 27/32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1 or Email: talesoftherecession@ gmail.com

- Jerome Reilly