Daft Property - Irish Property News

EU now being threatened by its own central bank... IN the late 1980s, while studying at the College of Europe in Bruges, I was struck by just how pragmatic the European project appeared to be. Many of the lecturers and professors were deep EU "insiders" -- distinguished academics from all over Europe who had excelled in their own fields. They seemed to be the pinnacle of cosmopolitan sophistication, enlightened and aware of the various strands that had to be pulled together carefully to make the EU work. Back then, any moves towards more European power were characterised by patience and prescience -- a little move here, a pull back there, never overplaying the hand and, above all, the entire process seemed to be non-ideological. Over the past 10 years, this has changed. European wisdom has been replaced by EU dogma; lateral thinking exchanged for tunnel vision. The ECB is to blame. Those who, during the boom, pointed out that there was a central problem at the heart...

Builders? You can afford them now... JUST WHEN the construction industry thought the news couldn’t get any worse, it suddenly did. Several reports published this week have painted a bleak picture for an industry already on its knees after the property sector meltdown ... They indicate that prices for big and small construction jobs have fallen almost as dramatically as jobless numbers in the sector have risen. Although homeowners will have sympathy for individual tradesmen who have lost their jobs, they will relish the consequential price drops and the sudden availability of tilers, plumbers and carpenters who could not be got for love nor ridiculous sums of money at the height of the boom. “Builders were making money hand over fist for years and even at a 30 per cent discount they are still making money and don’t let anyone tell you any different,” one industry source unsympathetic to the plight of builders told The Irish Times this week. The Construction Industry Federation stoutly r...

"Stagflation" says it all... "Brian Cowen's sloppy economic management has exposed Ireland to the risk of 'stagflation', a lethal combination of a stagnant economy and rising inflation," according to Fine Gael's Richard Bruton.