Daft Property - Irish Property News

The property bubble was partly fuelled by political and regulatory mistakes, education minister Batt O’Keeffe has admitted. Addressing the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) conference and dinner last Friday night, O’Keeffe said that those in positions of leadership in the construction industry had the ‘‘opportunity to help shape the future of the sector in a way that acknowledges the mistakes of the past’’. He listed those mistakes as ‘‘the failure of the Central Bank and Financial Regulator to properly control lending practices and the failure of the private sector, including developers and bankers, in amassing wealth without adequately considering the longer term implications’’. He also admitted to a ‘‘failure of politicians to curb a culture of one-upmanship and target-driven greed in the banking and property sectors’’. O’Keeffe said that the annual construction industry review and outlook, to be published this week, ‘‘will not make for happy reading’’. It will show that almost

House prices to fall until 2012, industry bosses told... HOUSE prices will continue to slide until 2012, it has been claimed, as construction chiefs were told the industry will never be the same again. Yesterday’s figures also show that lending to the construction industry soared from €10 million in 2001 to €115m at its peak. The statistics were revealed at the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) conference in Cork. Labour party leader Eamon Gilmore said that the industry will never again employ the same number of people as it did two years ago. He said there will again be a demand for new housing but he wants a construction industry – like any other – that is sustainable. At its peak in 2007, the industry employed 280,000 direct employees and a further 120,000 indirect, equivalent to 19% of total employment. Today it employs 200,000 but the CIF said that another 100,000 direct and indirect jobs could still be lost. Mr Gilmore also said there is huge scope for reform in Ireland’s pl