Daft Property - Irish Property News

They're all away as we face Greek-style crisis Immediate action needed on debt, but Dail won't cut short holidays... THE Government is to leave the political apparatus of the State on holiday throughout September -- even though there is growing concern that the country could face a Greek-style crisis before the end of the year. Widespread bewilderment was aroused in high finance circles last week by the publication of photographs of the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, playing golf the day after Ireland's sovereign debt was downgraded again. In what is seen as an example of ill-judged timing, Mr Cowen played golf in Connemara on Wednesday with other seemingly carefree TDs and senators, who still have four weeks of a two-month summer break to go. But while the Oireachtas is in repose, enjoying a longer than usual break, the financial markets are in overdrive and are now evidently training their sights on Ireland with the apparent intention of again testing the resolve of the EU later

While the rest of us work, TDs get three months off... THERE are ordinary people and then there are the people in the Dail. Dr James Reilly made the distinction while arguing against a three-month summer recess. Ordinary people, he said, could not fathom how the Government could take a three-month holiday in the middle of the biggest economic crisis in the history of the State. The Fine Gael deputy leader was doing his best to distance himself and his party from the perception that they and all the other extraordinary people in the Dail exist in some sort of parallel universe , untroubled by reality . However, the Opposition's attempts to absolve themselves by objecting to the length of the recess rang a little hollowly. In the end, they shrugged and went off on holiday anyway. Would it be too cynical to suggest that it doesn't matter a curse that the Dail will be inactive for three months due to its general ineffectiveness? When we are told that the Dail has decided this or th

Nobody is laughing as nation gets left in lurch... We are at the brink of being ungovernable as our absentee political class flee the Dail... This may have been the week where the political establishment was caught with its trousers down around its ankles but nobody is laughing. It is not often these days that Leinster House is a catalyst for Christmas images but there was more than a small element of that much loved children's poem 'The Night Before Christmas' surrounding the latest Dail debacle. On 'black Wednesday' the worst exchequer figures in the history of the State were announced, but in the Dail 'not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse'. One supposes we shouldn't have expected anything better. Those absentee Ascendancy landlords who allowed Ireland to rot during the great famine may be one of the most reviled groups in Irish history but, as the economy experiences its worst shock since the famine, it appears as though we have our own home-