Daft Property - Irish Property News

Call for inquiry into property bubble... An independent inquiry is needed into the Government’s failure to control the property bubble, a State-funded academic institution said today. In a scathing report, the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (Nirsa) also demanded a full investigation into charges of cronyism in the planning process. Furthermore, the body which examines how the country is developing, claimed the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) is a worrying organisation set up as part of a response to protect developers potentially at the expense of taxpayers. Professor Rob Kitchin, director of Nirsa, which is based in NUI Maynooth, said an inquiry into planning decisions and alleged close links between politicians and property speculators was necessary if the housing market was to recover. “An independent inquiry is needed to investigate all aspects of the planning system and its operation within and across different agencies and at all scales in Ireland in...

Selling off state assets on the cheap is just madness... This Government will not contemplate selling property just in case it would bankrupt the banks. The State's argument is that the market is depressed so if we were to sell the land, we would not get a fair price for it. So we will postpone the problem: we get NAMA -- a financial skip into which the banks throw their worthless mistakes -- and you pay. The logic of NAMA and this Government's central strategy is to wait for the value of land to improve before selling. Whether you agree with it or not, this is their logic. It can be summed up by: "Don't sell land in a depressed market." Yet at the same time, the Government has just announced that it will sell real assets via privatisation in a similarly depressed market. So why can it sell ESB -- a real company with real assets -- and not a field in Athlone which is worthless and should command the price a farmer would pay you to put a donkey grazing on it? Why i...

Be prepared for a double whammy of property and water levies... PROPERTY tax isn't going away -- and it might be introduced at the same time as water charges. Homeowners who thought they would be spared the controversial taxes for the foreseeable future have been told that they are still firmly on the Government's Budget agenda. As the Cabinet prepared to meet for its final session before the summer break, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern reignited the debate over domestic taxes. It had been believed that property tax would be shelved, despite the Government's need to make a €3bn adjustment in December's budget. But yesterday, Mr Ahern said: "That may include a property tax and charging for water - which are in every other European country." Dragged He also warned that low paid workers could be dragged back into the tax net. "There's a relatively small percentage of people who are paying tax. But 50pc of people are not paying a bob of tax. That is not su...

And They're Off... The Hook Again... As the Nama smoke begins to clear, it is apparent developers deemed too big to fail are being bailed out just like the banks... Last week, there was the ritual sacrifice. Seán FitzPatrick "bowed to the inevitable" as he said himself, and petitioned to be declared a bankrupt. From here on in, if he is to enjoy any luxury in his life, it will be as a kept man. His wife, who never worked a day in Anglo Irish Bank, enjoys half a pension pot somewhere north of €3m. She is also part owner of a number of properties, which is just as well for the FitzPatricks, if they are to continue living in the style to which they have become accustomed. There is little sympathy for FitzPatrick. In a country where so many are struggling, he has become the pantomime villain. As a result, there was no way that Anglo Irish Bank was ever going to accept a private deal to settle his debts. The public would have been outraged. But what of all the rest? FitzPatric...

Ireland is staring down the barrel of bankruptcy... Why are interest rates for Irish debt rising? Because the risk of a blowout here is rising -- it really is that simple IN THE summer of 1787, determined to show foreign ambassadors the might of Russian power in the newly subjugated Ukraine, Catherine the Great organised a boat trip down the Dnieper, past modern-day Kiev. Her trusted field marshal -- who was also her lover -- Prince Gregory Potemkin organised a series of mobile villages to appear as soon as the imperial barge, stuffed with innocent and gullible foreign dignitaries, came into view. When the boat came within earshot of the river bank, the villagers would break into a spontaneous, sycophantic chorus of praise for the empress, giving the perplexed foreigners the impression that not only had Russia pacified Ukraine, it had also managed to win over the local peasantry -- which was no mean feat in the 18th Century. As soon as the imperial barge turned the corner, the villager...

Caging Tiger-think key to Ireland's economic revival... OPINION : Stimulus and mass job creation is a must as we leave behind crazy, jargon-filled days of boom and pursue a more concrete reality THREE YEARS ago, it seemed Ireland was doing very nicely. And then suddenly it all changed. Our lifestyles were threatened; our wealth and dreams shattered. People had to try somehow to understand and come to grips with the frightening new reality of a rapidly deteriorating economy and a property market about to crash. Jules Henri Poincare wrote: “To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity for reflection.” We have spent a lot of time since, necessarily so, reflecting on a continuous flow of appalling information about banks, developers, Nama, frozen credit, failing businesses, negative equity and a collapsing economy, accumulating in an astonishing and calamitous increase in unemployment. But unlike WC Fields’ comment ...

How Cowen took a €440bn shot in dark... Government snub for own advisers: THE Government was in the dark about the true scale of the banks’ massive losses when it ignored its own advisers and pushed ahead with a €440bn blanket state guarantee. Losses at the banks have ended up being double the amount the Department of Finance assumed at the time of the bailout. The €440bn bailout was undertaken on the basis that the banks had assets of €500bn. But in reality these assets were worth far less because of the property crash. If the guarantee was called in at any time, taxpayers would face colossal losses that would dwarf the banking bill to date. The startling revelations are revealed in newly released documents from a Dail committee investigating the banking crisis. The documents revealed: ● Contingency plans to nationalise Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide were in place before the controversial guarantee was agreed on September 29. ● A special lending scheme proposed by advisers Merr...