Daft Property - Irish Property News

Ireland poses real threat to future of the euro, says top think-tank... Ireland has been identified as one of a small number of countries that poses "a real risk" to the future of the euro, according to reports in a Sunday newspaper. The report cites research from influential German think-tank CESifo, which warned of "very serious" slowdown in the Irish economy three years ago. The new research reportedly lists Ireland and Greece as two countries where international money markets see a significant risk of a sovereign default or an exit from the single currency. This perceived risk is reflecting in the markets for Irish and Greek debt, CESifo says, even though leaving the eurozone is not on the political agenda. Ireland, along with Finland, also comes in for a mention in CESifo's list of countries for which eurozone membership is "not optimal", due to our heavy reliance on trading with non-eurozone countries. Stable Against the backdrop of last week'

We're facing worst crisis in history of State... FORMER president Mary Robinson yesterday warned the Government that the country is in the grip of possibly the worst crisis in the history of the State. She bluntly told the country's leaders that a lack of a vision of ourselves "lies at the heart of the crises we face" and warned that it was vital that example now come from the top and that the vulnerable be protected. The former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday became the first former president to deliver the General Michael Collins oration at Beal na mBlath in west Cork. Her speech centred on the scale of the crisis facing Ireland and how those in positions of power should deal with it. "Challenges of this magnitude demand not only detailed solutions but a comprehensive vision of what sort of society we want to see emerge from our current difficulties. "The likelihood is that, in the absence of a vision of our future which enjoys broad suppor

Can we remake Ireland's future? The year ended with the certainty that the global crisis is not a short-term glitch, and that Ireland is suffering more than most. Will 2009 bring the shift in Irish political culture needed to bring us back from the brink? LATE LAST YEAR, when the rock band Tindersticks played in Dublin, they finished their set with The Not Knowing , a haunting ballad of love and denial. The words seemed especially apt and particularly poignant: "The not knowing is easy/ The suspecting, that's okay/ Just don't tell me for certain/ That our love has gone away." Replace "love" with "boom" and the sad song would be a three-hankie job. This time last year, the not knowing still came easy and even the strong suspicion that the good times were definitively over could be drowned in denial, excess or the mellow lullabies of "soft landings". Now we know for certain, and if there is to be comfort in 2009, we have to find it in t

I like this: 'Dublin's Liffey Quays' in 2032 is part of IMAGEN Architects winning entry to a competition run by Architecture Ireland / Plan Expo. IMAGEN's proposal for the Liffey Quays 2032 was to consider the River Liffey as a green urban spine to the expanding city. The Quays would become vehicle free, except for carbon-free public transport systems, which would reinvent the Quays as a series of major public spaces, pocket parks and 'green bridges'. Hueston Station and Croppy's Acre would become the Quay's western gateway. Dublin's 'little Venice' allows the city to step down to the water's edge. O'Connell Bridge would now become a new public space connecting the city as an urban plaza and meeting place. The Docklands reinvents itself as a new international transportation hub. This would facilitate future high speed rail connections to Belfast and possibly the UK, alongside an expanding business district. The Docks would become a &#