Daft Property - Irish Property News

IRELAND TODAY: IT’S JUST over a year since Wall Street and its Irish cheerleaders chanted “We are where we are” while Main Street reeled. Since then, every wrong-headed, populist Government economic policy, every catastrophic failure of the Financial Regulator, every rampantly greedy, short-termist instinct of the financial institutions and builders/developers has been exposed... A year ago, commentators were predicting something akin to the end of capitalism as we know it. Citizens were demanding humility, apologies, accountability, a purpose of amendment, radical reform, fewer tax breaks, an end to the bonus culture and a fairer share-out of the tax burden. So how is your head now, a year on? Still looking for other heads on plates? There is a lot to rage against. Only this week, headlines announced that banks are being “forced” to pay bonuses. But how long can a people sustain a condition of mass, impotent rage while remaining relatively sane and healthy? A few weeks ago, 1,200 peop...

Nama turns us into a nation of speculators... OPINION: Builders and developers have finally managed to shape the country in their own image... THE DRAFT National Asset Management Agency (Nama) legislation runs to 136 pages, so it’s not too surprising that most people have missed the interesting section 201. It reads as follows: 201.1: Henceforth, all male children shall be called Seán, Seánie, Paddy, Mick, Tom, Joe, Gerry, Liam or Bernard. All female children shall be christened Seona, Patricia, Michaela, Tomasina, Josephine, Geraldine, Wilma or Bernadine and shall be referred to de facto as Seán, Seánie, Paddy, Mick, Tom, Joe, Gerry, Liam or Bernard. 201.2: From the coming into force of this legislation, all citizens shall be required to receive a daily dosage of testosterone and cocaine to induce feelings of competitive aggression and megalomaniacal omnipotence. 201.3: All male citizens shall wear a pink shirt as a declaration that said citizen is so macho that he can wear pink and n...

Nama will bankrupt us for generations... The Government isn't just passing bad laws, it's putting us all in an economic strait-jacket.. . First, it's necessary to use this space to defend the banks. Over the past week, much of the criticism thrown at senior bankers was unmerited, and it would be unfair not to acknowledge that. It's a dirty job, defending those greedy bastards, but someone's got to do it. I can promise that normal service will be resumed shortly (within a few paragraphs, to be honest -- at which point we'll try to understand why we're now up to our chins in the rising tide of faeces that is Nama). The bankers got a bad rap because one bank, Permanent TSB ("The Bank That Likes to Say Feck Off"), increased interest rates. Other banks acknowledged they have similar intentions. Screams of horror issued from the media and politicians. Oh, dear -- it seems the banks are refusing to operate as social utilities. As though they believe that ...

It was Samuel Johnson who famously proclaimed in 1775 that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. What we have been witnessing has little to do with real patriotism — it is a phoney patriotism. In the circumstances, the more appropriate word is treason. THE US Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, says raising taxes is patriotic. Speaking in a nationwide TV interview, he proclaimed: “It’s time to be patriotic.” Did the Yanks set the tone for this week’s budget? “This budget serves no vested interest,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told the Dáil on Tuesday. “It is no less than a call to patriotic action.” In fairness to Government ministers, they took a 10% cut in their salaries to give some example. Enda Kenny had called on all the politicians to cut their salaries. So the Government did give some example by cutting their own over-inflated salaries, but they offered little in the way of real leadership. People in a city who have a car park space provided ...