Daft Property - Irish Property News

A momentous year which went from bad to worse... Siobhan Creaton uses the alphabet to summarise the main events of what proved to be a tumultuous year for Ireland A The nightmare that is Anglo Irish Bank continued in 2010 when its staggering €35bn of bad loans finally bankrupted the country. Some of the bank's top brass were arrested and questioned by gardai, and the Director for Public Prosecutions will decide next year whether they will face charges for their recklessness. Sean FitzPatrick did suffer the humiliation of being made bankrupt while his protege David Drumm filed for bankruptcy in the US where he may fare better in the long run. For many months politicians dithered and differed over how to solve the Anglo problem before finally agreeing to wind it down. So in 2011 Anglo Irish Bank will disappear forever but Irish taxpayers will be paying for its failure for many years to come. B 2010 will go down in history as the year when Ireland agreed to take an €85bn bailout from ...

Surge in emigration as economic downturn takes toll... THE NUMBER of people moving to live in Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Britain over the past year has increased sharply, reflecting a major surge in emigration due to the recession. New figures show Irish citizens have received 21 per cent more long-term resident visas for Australia, 49 per cent more New Zealand resident visas and 33 per cent more US immigrant visas. There has also been a 100 per cent increase in the number of Canadian work permits issued to Irish people and a significant increase in the number of similar visas issued for Australia. The number of people moving to Britain has risen by 2 per cent in 2010, which amounts to just under 1,000 Irish people moving to Britain every month to live. The figures from five of the most popular destinations for Irish emigrants are in line with recent data from Central Statistics Office, showing 65,300 people emigrated in the year to April 2010, the highest number leavin...

Thousands of horses and ponies abandoned in Irish countryside as financial crisis bites... Tens of thousands of horses and ponies are believed to have been abandoned in the Irish countryside as families struggle to cope with the financial meltdown. Animal welfare inspectors have had to shoot some of the worst affected animals left badly weakened by exposure, starvation, sickness and injury. With costs of feeding or keeping the horses in stables running to £26 per day, generations who have kept horses as a passion have no longer been able to afford to keep them. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has pledged £12.8billion in spending cuts and tax increases over the next four years. The austerity measures are expected to lead to a 10 per cent cut in the disposable income of Ireland's middle class, and worse for those on lower incomes, leaving them without the funds to care for domestic pets. Irish law requires owners to have animals registered and microchipped, but it is not rigidly enf...

FF's parting gift of corporate welfare will sink the country... A farmer told me he had just taken €53,000 out of the local bank and put it under his bed YESTERDAY was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In many other Catholic countries, particularly in Belgium and southern Holland, this is also the week that Santa comes and leaves presents in children's shoes. For many, both the Immaculate Conception and Santa Claus are simply not believable. For me as a child, December 8 was a day off school and that's all that counted. What would Christmas be without Santa, or Catholicism without the Immaculate Conception? You can't have one without the other. Even if you don't believe, sometimes it is easier to pretend. The Budget was akin to the Government playing a big game of 'let's pretend'. Let's pretend that the banks are solvent. Let's pretend that the problem in Ireland is 'social' welfare rather than 'corporate' welfare (because t...

It's a scandal, we're still being screwed to pay bankers their bonuses... This must be the final insult. In three days' time, Brian Lenihan's Budget will take a big chunk of money from every taxpayer in the country to bail out our failed banks. Now we discover that those same banks have already been using public cash to pay their staff handsome bonuses and salary increases that will ensure they escape the worst of the pain. Needless to say, this information has not been exactly been freely volunteered by the banks themselves. In fact, it has only emerged because the backbench Fianna Fail TD Chris Andrews put down a written Dail question on the issue last Wednesday. A new opinion poll suggests that as few as 16 FF TDs could be returned in the coming general election -- but Andrews' willingness to confront his own Government's policies suggests that if there's any justice, he will be one of them. The evidence is clear. Over the last two years, most workers hav...

Bailout will sink Ireland before we can even swim... Foreign banks and creditors should lose everything they gambled on the likes of Anglo, but instead, they have been saved by the taxpayer Make no mistake about it, this 'bailout' will sink Ireland. We are witnessing a monumental struggle between the innocent average Irish person and the guilty creditors of the bust Irish banks. Interestingly, the financial markets have seen through what the Government and the elite are trying to do and have reacted with ferocious negativity to the Irish deal. The markets realise that the Irish State is not bust; rather the Irish banking system is bust. Therefore, rational people can see that any deal which is framed to give Ireland a chance has to sever the link between the bust banks and the solvent State. However, far from severing the link, the deal solders the link between State and banks, making the Irish Republic itself little more than a bust bank. The rest of the world has twigged that...

THE country is facing crippling interest payments of €10 billion a year after the European Union and IMF agreed to an €85bn rescue package to fund the economy for the next three years. The bulk of the money, €50bn, will be used to pay for the day-to-day running of the country. The banks will receive €8bn immediately to restore their cash reserves; €2bn will be on standby and a further €25bn will be available if and when they need it. The money will come from the IMF, our Euro area partners and loans from Britain, Denmark and Sweden. In addition, the country has been told to take €12.5bn from the National Pension Reserve Fund and use €5bn the NTMA had already borrowed to pay for early 2011. The expected average interest rate for the bailout will be 5.83%. By 2013 the national debt is expected to rise above €200bn and by then almost a quarter of all taxes raised will be used to pay interest service costs. At the end of the term this is expected to have climbed to €9.66bn a year if the ba...