Daft Property - Irish Property News

Bertie bags $40,000 - for tips on Celtic Tiger 'success'... FORMER Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is charging American companies a fortune to present a new lecture -- about how he transformed our economy in the Celtic Tiger boom. The man targeted by many as the architect of our crippling recession, is charging more than $40,000 (€27,554) a time for speaking engagements with the elite Washington Speakers Bureau. During the lecture, Mr Ahern offers tips to bosses of leading firms on how to be competitive. The former Fianna Fail leader has been employed for a number of years as one of the highest-paid speakers with the bureau -- whose motto is 'Connecting you with the world's greatest minds' . In his latest lecture -- entitled 'Prime Minister as CEO' -- he tells listeners to adopt Ireland's Celtic Tiger as a model of economic growth. Last night it was described as "bewildering". Bosses of the bureau refused to reveal the number of times Mr A...

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...

Rise and fall of the Tiger nouveau riche... NOW THAT we’re in an economic war zone, I’ve been thinking about the Economic War. As my family was a direct victim of that conflict, I was reared with a rather one-sided view of the times that went beyond the abstract account in history books... My great-grandfather retired from a successful medical career and bought land in Meath which he farmed profitably. He must have done well because my grandfather was educated privately in England and in a literal manifestation of his position in society there was even a family pew in the upstairs gallery of the rural parish church. All went well until Éamon de Valera, the most pernicious and malign figure in Irish history, in a fit of ideological insanity implemented a set of policies that cut off our country’s only export market – England – for our only product – food – and thus crippled Ireland’s economy and in the process permanently ruined that class of people to which the now poor Dr Carey belong...

Cowen has left this rudderless nation adrift on a sea of incompetency... It took a while to fully comprehend what was actually going on. This was, perhaps, because it seemed so unlikely. Of course, the more we learn about these things, the more we know it is not that unlikely at all. But those were more innocent times. Those were times when we had that cosy assumption that the people in charge vaguely knew what they were doing. Even if we have no respect for them or their intelligence, even if we disagree with their politics, in this country we generally assume that someone up there in government is vaguely managing things at some level of competence. If we don't think it's the actual Taoiseach or minister, we suspect that there are civil servants who've been running things for years and know what has to be done. After all, this is not some third-worldy banana republic. This is a well-turned-out, internationally accepted, sophisticated 21st century country. Someone must kno...

Bertie Ahern has announced his decision to resign as leader of the country. " Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern earned his nickname the "Teflon Taoiseach" for his uncanny ability to survive personal and political scandals, scandals which would have toppled a less gifted politician... One of his mentors was the disgraced former Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who took millions of pounds from businessmen. He called Mr Ahern "the most cunning, the most ruthless, the most devious of them all"... As Taoiseach, Mr Ahern presided over an economic boom - the so-called "Celtic Tiger" - which has seen Ireland transformed from a largely poor, rural, agricultural country into a prosperous nation, with job opportunities attracting immigrants from all over the world. But the economy, largely based on an unprecedented property boom, has shown signs of flagging for the past year or two, while Ahern has been at the centre of a long-running probe into payments which he alle...

More Fact is Fiction TV Reality or something... "Dodgy Developers, Corrupt politicians, Back Handers and a loss of faith in government, sounds like a normal episode of Law and Order to me! Why not cancel the Mahon Tribunal and let Law and Order sort it in an hour! (allowing for commercials of course!)"

Enjoy!... Laurel & Hardy Meet Talking Heads:

Following yesterdays reports about tax returns for the start of 2008, being €500m less than expected, plus rising unemployment etc., the Taoiseach has been accused of presiding over, "the worst deterioration in the economy in the history of the State", by Enda Kenny However the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, insists the outlook for the Irish economy is postive, and said that the country is doing very well by international standards and that it was still on target(...for what????!) "He knows nothing and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career." George Bernard Shaw