Daft Property - Irish Property News

A momentous year which went from bad to worse... Siobhan Creaton uses the alphabet to summarise the main events of what proved to be a tumultuous year for Ireland A The nightmare that is Anglo Irish Bank continued in 2010 when its staggering €35bn of bad loans finally bankrupted the country. Some of the bank's top brass were arrested and questioned by gardai, and the Director for Public Prosecutions will decide next year whether they will face charges for their recklessness. Sean FitzPatrick did suffer the humiliation of being made bankrupt while his protege David Drumm filed for bankruptcy in the US where he may fare better in the long run. For many months politicians dithered and differed over how to solve the Anglo problem before finally agreeing to wind it down. So in 2011 Anglo Irish Bank will disappear forever but Irish taxpayers will be paying for its failure for many years to come. B 2010 will go down in history as the year when Ireland agreed to take an €85bn bailout from ...

Surge in emigration as economic downturn takes toll... THE NUMBER of people moving to live in Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Britain over the past year has increased sharply, reflecting a major surge in emigration due to the recession. New figures show Irish citizens have received 21 per cent more long-term resident visas for Australia, 49 per cent more New Zealand resident visas and 33 per cent more US immigrant visas. There has also been a 100 per cent increase in the number of Canadian work permits issued to Irish people and a significant increase in the number of similar visas issued for Australia. The number of people moving to Britain has risen by 2 per cent in 2010, which amounts to just under 1,000 Irish people moving to Britain every month to live. The figures from five of the most popular destinations for Irish emigrants are in line with recent data from Central Statistics Office, showing 65,300 people emigrated in the year to April 2010, the highest number leavin...

Thousands of horses and ponies abandoned in Irish countryside as financial crisis bites... Tens of thousands of horses and ponies are believed to have been abandoned in the Irish countryside as families struggle to cope with the financial meltdown. Animal welfare inspectors have had to shoot some of the worst affected animals left badly weakened by exposure, starvation, sickness and injury. With costs of feeding or keeping the horses in stables running to £26 per day, generations who have kept horses as a passion have no longer been able to afford to keep them. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has pledged £12.8billion in spending cuts and tax increases over the next four years. The austerity measures are expected to lead to a 10 per cent cut in the disposable income of Ireland's middle class, and worse for those on lower incomes, leaving them without the funds to care for domestic pets. Irish law requires owners to have animals registered and microchipped, but it is not rigidly enf...

FF's parting gift of corporate welfare will sink the country... A farmer told me he had just taken €53,000 out of the local bank and put it under his bed YESTERDAY was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In many other Catholic countries, particularly in Belgium and southern Holland, this is also the week that Santa comes and leaves presents in children's shoes. For many, both the Immaculate Conception and Santa Claus are simply not believable. For me as a child, December 8 was a day off school and that's all that counted. What would Christmas be without Santa, or Catholicism without the Immaculate Conception? You can't have one without the other. Even if you don't believe, sometimes it is easier to pretend. The Budget was akin to the Government playing a big game of 'let's pretend'. Let's pretend that the banks are solvent. Let's pretend that the problem in Ireland is 'social' welfare rather than 'corporate' welfare (because t...

It's a scandal, we're still being screwed to pay bankers their bonuses... This must be the final insult. In three days' time, Brian Lenihan's Budget will take a big chunk of money from every taxpayer in the country to bail out our failed banks. Now we discover that those same banks have already been using public cash to pay their staff handsome bonuses and salary increases that will ensure they escape the worst of the pain. Needless to say, this information has not been exactly been freely volunteered by the banks themselves. In fact, it has only emerged because the backbench Fianna Fail TD Chris Andrews put down a written Dail question on the issue last Wednesday. A new opinion poll suggests that as few as 16 FF TDs could be returned in the coming general election -- but Andrews' willingness to confront his own Government's policies suggests that if there's any justice, he will be one of them. The evidence is clear. Over the last two years, most workers hav...

Bailout will sink Ireland before we can even swim... Foreign banks and creditors should lose everything they gambled on the likes of Anglo, but instead, they have been saved by the taxpayer Make no mistake about it, this 'bailout' will sink Ireland. We are witnessing a monumental struggle between the innocent average Irish person and the guilty creditors of the bust Irish banks. Interestingly, the financial markets have seen through what the Government and the elite are trying to do and have reacted with ferocious negativity to the Irish deal. The markets realise that the Irish State is not bust; rather the Irish banking system is bust. Therefore, rational people can see that any deal which is framed to give Ireland a chance has to sever the link between the bust banks and the solvent State. However, far from severing the link, the deal solders the link between State and banks, making the Irish Republic itself little more than a bust bank. The rest of the world has twigged that...

THE country is facing crippling interest payments of €10 billion a year after the European Union and IMF agreed to an €85bn rescue package to fund the economy for the next three years. The bulk of the money, €50bn, will be used to pay for the day-to-day running of the country. The banks will receive €8bn immediately to restore their cash reserves; €2bn will be on standby and a further €25bn will be available if and when they need it. The money will come from the IMF, our Euro area partners and loans from Britain, Denmark and Sweden. In addition, the country has been told to take €12.5bn from the National Pension Reserve Fund and use €5bn the NTMA had already borrowed to pay for early 2011. The expected average interest rate for the bailout will be 5.83%. By 2013 the national debt is expected to rise above €200bn and by then almost a quarter of all taxes raised will be used to pay interest service costs. At the end of the term this is expected to have climbed to €9.66bn a year if the ba...

Householder to carry heavy can for errant banks... HOUSEHOLDERS will be hammered. That is the clear message from the four-year austerity plan issued yesterday by the Government. In plain language, if you own a home, have a pension and a son or daughter in college, you will end up more than €4,600 a year worse off by the time all of the changes in this plan have been implemented. Many of the changes will impact early on in the four-year plan, putting additional pain on family budgets. Middle Ireland is set to pay an extortionate price for the failures of our banks, our regulators and the Government. And significantly, there are no measures in the four-year plan to levy the errant banks. Instead, homeowners will bear the brunt. Personal finance experts last night warned the taxes, levies and charges would push many families over the edge financially. The downturn has left many consumers just one bill away from financial collapse. The severe measures in the four-year plan could be enough ...

Cowen accepts the bailout but not the responsibility... As a result of an ill-judged edit, viewers of the national broadcaster missed the liveliest and most telling part of the press conference held tonight at Government Buildings by the current Taoiseach Brian Cowen and the current Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan. TV3 host and Irish Times columnist Vincent Browne asked Cowen if he accepted that he was to blame for “screwing up the country”; that he more than anyone else was responsible for Ireland’s economic catastrophe and that his continued presence in office was “a liability” to the nation. “I don’t accept that at all,” replied Cowen, grumpily. “I don’t accept your contention [or] the premise to your question that I’m the bogeyman you’re looking for.” Minutes earlier, a Bloomberg television journalist who asked if Cowen had ever thought of packing it in was told that the process of electing a Taoiseach was a parliamentary matter… mumble, jargon, mumble. As for whether or not he ...

A nation's outrage to drive Cowen out... Poll: public welcomes the IMF but roundly furious at government ‘lies’ THE Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, and his Government are at risk of being ignominiously driven from office, such is the level of anger sweeping the country this weekend. The people have broadly welcomed the arrival of the IMF, are largely indifferent to emotive sentiment associated with a perceived loss of national sovereignty, but are roundly furious at the manner in which the Government has “lied” about the unprecedented events of last week. As the Government now strives to further “spin” itself out of what is, by any measure, a glaringly obvious credibility deficit, its efforts to do so will be hampered by a disintegration of cohesion within its own ranks. This weekend, the Taoiseach is at odds with the governor of the Central Bank; the Minister for Finance is in agreement with the governor and, therefore, at odds with the Taoiseach; and at least two senior Cabinet ministers...

We need to re-trace our steps and go over what a complete mess has been made of this country.. . IS sovereignty of so little account that two senior cabinet members can consider throwing it away while the rest of the Government don't even know their leaders are doing this? What is being done to our country? Who will buy us, or sell us, next? What has really been going on since Brian Cowen concluded his disastrous occupation of the Finance Ministry and graduated to his even more disastrous holding of the job of Taoiseach? We need to re-trace our steps and go over again what a complete mess has been made of this country's governance, bringing us the acute embarrassments of this week. It began with Anglo, followed by all the other banks. It then proceeded to the Lisbon Treaty vote, enhancing Europe's powers over our sovereignty. Then it floundered into the disaster called NAMA and ended with debts that needed international rescue. It concludes with loss of sovereignty. Anglo f...

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore today demanded the Taoiseach resign in the national interest claiming Ireland had suffered its blackest week since the Civil War. As formal talks begin in Dublin with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European officials, Mr Gilmore said the Government has no authority to strike a deal on a bailout loan. "(Taoiseach) Brian Cowen continues to cling to power and his attitude seems to be that if Fianna Fail is going down, the country is going down with it," the Labour chief said. Mr Gilmore accused Mr Cowen and his coalition Government of laying waste to the economy. "If he will do the honourable thing, an election could be held by the second week in December. A new government, with a fresh mandate, would be in place before Christmas," he said. "In the meantime, discussions or negotiations with the EU and the IMF could continue with their preliminary work, but any final agreement would be a matter for a new government. "Apar...

DAIL SKETCH: THE PATIENT is a basket case and refusing treatment. “This country has not applied to enter a facility,” insisted the Taoiseach, defiant to the last. He is not going to commit poor Mother Ireland into some sort of economic Shady Pines, to be prodded at by bespectacled eurocrats before being released into the real world with a healthy spending plan and an ankle tag. We’re fine. There is nothing wrong with us. It’s our enemies in the international media and other sinister factions who have it in for us. At least that was Brian Cowen’s belief yesterday afternoon. But as he spoke in the Dáil, the men in the white coats circled ever closer in Brussels, syringes at the ready. “Come, come, Ireland, take your fiscal medicine!” Still, the Taoiseach protested. “We are pre-funded up to mid-2011,” he argued, pleading for more time. Wait until the Ecofin meeting is over, he asked. The Opposition listened to him in the Dáil, looking scared, unanimous in their opinion that the Taoiseach ...

'FOR God's sake, Sarge, say something, even if it's only goodbye!" The old joke about the platoon of soldiers about to march over a cliff carries relevance for a Taoiseach and a Government out of step with everybody else and refusing to acknowledge the proximity of the cliff. For much of the last week, the story of Ireland's trouble has jostled for prominence in the headlines with massive world events. It has preoccupied leaders at international conferences. It has filled the pages of the 'Financial Times' and attracted the attention of the media in Europe and the United States. It has provoked comment, almost unanimously gloomy, from leading economists. But "Sarge" has had nothing to say beyond a reassurance that we have enough money in the kitty to last us until the middle of next year. After that, who knows? At any rate, Sarge thinks the cliff is a long way off. Brian Cowen is reportedly "furious" about the reports that we may seek to...

HOMEOWNERS face paying an €80-a-month property tax under a plan drawn up by the country's top economic think-tank. The charge would be based on the value of homes, and middle-income earners would end up providing most of the tax generated, the study by the Economic and Social Research Institute says. Homeowners who bought their house and paid stamp duty in recent years would be given a waiver, as they would be regarded as having already paid a property tax. Those on low incomes and people getting social welfare benefits would be exempted from the payment. Even with these exemptions, a property tax could still bring in close to €1bn a year, as the Government draws up plans for a €15bn package of cuts and taxes over the next four years. There are 1.7 million households in the country, but the exemption scheme would mean up to 235,000 householders would not have to pay the tax, the ESRI says. But the study, which sets out how a property tax would work, warns that exempting those with ...

"If you thought the bank bailout was bad, wait until the mortgage defaults hit home." THE BIG PICTURE: Ireland is effectively insolvent – the next crisis will be mass home mortgage default, writes MORGAN KELLY ... SAD NEWS just in from Our Lady of the Eurozone Hospital: After a sudden worsening in her condition, the Irish Patient, formerly known as the Irish Republic, has been moved into intensive care and put on artificial ventilation. While a hospital spokesman, Jean-Claude Trichet, tried to sound upbeat, there is no prospect that the Patient will recover. It will be remembered that, after a lengthy period of poverty following her acrimonious divorce from her English partner, in the 1990s Ireland succeeded in turning her life around, educating herself, and holding down a steady job. Although her increasingly riotous lifestyle over the last decade had raised some concerns, the Irish Patient’s fate was sealed by a botched emergency intervention on September 29th, 2008 followe...