Daft Property - Irish Property News

We're paying high price for blind eyes and denial... No event in the past 40 years, apart from the Arms Crisis of 1970, has been shrouded in as much state secrecy as the bank guarantee scheme introduced on the night of September 28, 2008. While everyone knows the outcome of the various meetings -- €485bn of liabilities were ultimately guaranteed -- only a small circle knows precisely what happened during the shuttle diplomacy between the banks and Brian Cowen's Government that night. Two books have been written, several newspaper accounts have been published and one or two of the participants have even spoken briefly about that fateful evening. But detailed, minuted information about the key decisions and key moments leading up to the guarantee has never been released. In fact a slew of Freedom of Information requests seeking these details has been flatly rejected, with the Department of Finance using highly charged language to explain why the public and the media cannot see su...

Strikes no answer to crisis... AT A time when social solidarity and a sense of personal responsibility are needed as never before, employees in the most protected sector of the economy have behaved selfishly. A one-day strike by a quarter of a million State workers – and the threat of more to come – has damaged our international reputation and made the task of economic recovery even more difficult. When all the rhetoric and special pleading by trade union leaders is stripped away, what is left is the unattractive face of mé féinism. Public sector workers can argue they are not responsible for the recession and that they have already been forced to pay a pension levy. But their anger at the banking sector; at the Government’s mishandling of the situation and the various regulatory failures that contributed to our current difficulties is shared by workers in the private sector and does not exempt them from the tough fiscal actions that are now required to correct the public finances. Jus...

‘Wrong-Headed’ RBS, Danske, HBOS Lose in Irish Bubble... Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- It’s not just the Irish who are being stung by the collapse of the property market in what was once Western Europe’s most dynamic economy. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, which bought Dublin-based First Active in 2004 in what was the largest overseas takeover of an Irish bank, said on Jan. 26 it will cut 750 jobs. Danske Bank A/S said provisions for impaired Irish loans rose by more than 10 times in the third quarter. “They were chasing the bubble, and now they are paying the price for it,” said Alex Potter, an analyst at Collins Stewart in London. “Their timing was absolutely wrong-headed.” Ireland’s economy is shrinking at the fastest pace in the euro area as the real estate market dives. The demise of the “Celtic Tiger” forced the government to seize control of Anglo Irish Bank Corp., which lends mainly to property developers, and to promise Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc, the two bigg...