Daft Property - Irish Property News

Growing dole queues expose fragility of Irish economy... Unemployment figures show Ireland cannot afford to lose a single multinational – but this is not stopping France and Germany trying to force it to raise corporation tax: Sometimes you have to wonder if the rest of Europe understands the fragility of Ireland's economy. Do the Germans and French not understand that there is a prospect of zero growth in the economy in the next three years and that forcing multinationals out of the country could finish Ireland off altogether? Their constant attacks on Ireland's low corporation tax rate have even got on the nerves of Ryanair's Michael O'Leary, who has warned that any increase will jeopardise the country's ability to pay off its debts. Figures out on Tuesday showed a surprise rise in unemployment. Yet Ireland swiftly came under attack again for its low corporation tax of 12.5%, as if this was any part of a fix for the challenging times ahead. German fina

European debt masters must study their part in our downfall... Stony-faced IMF and ECB officials touched down in Dublin yesterday as they make yet another attempt to solve the Irish banking crisis. This crisis is now almost three years old if you take the starting point to be the so-called 'St Patrick's Day massacre' of 2008 when Anglo Irish Bank's stock price plunged by 15pc. Despite plans to spend 36pc of everything Ireland produces on this one segment of the economy, all policy interventions to date have not only failed to shore up the system, but in some cases have made it even more unstable. While the primary responsibility for this failure must lie with our outgoing Government, wider culpability stretches in a southern direction to Brussels, then onward to Frankfurt. Last year economists Klaus Regling and Max Watson, in a key report, made it very clear the causes of Ireland's financial crisis were primarily homegrown, but deep involvement of European

'Bang twins' may never get to run a business again... POST-boom Ireland is awash with cautionary tales of Celtic Tiger excesses, as a rattle around the carcasses of fallen property developers and entrepreneurs will show. Few can compete with the so-called Bang twins for youth, glamour and tasteful extravagance. Simon and Christian Stokes, the 35-year-old identical twins behind Bang Cafe and exclusive private members club, Residence, saw their entire business go bust with debts of €9m, €3m of which is owed to the tax man. The debt may be in the ha'penny place compared with the eye-watering billions owed by some of their former customers. But their fall has been arguably steeper and more damning than some of the country's richest tycoons. Last week, further humiliation was heaped on them with revelations that even as their businesses were going under, the twins spent €146,000 of company money in 18 months on designer shopping sprees, five star holidays and sumptu

'Suicide' if we give in to EU on taxes... 'No surrender' insists Enda Kenny. 'Stand up to Merkel' says McDowell. An overwhelming majority of Irish people have endorsed Taoiseach Enda Kenny's refusal to budge on Ireland's corporation tax rate during intense clashes with German and French leaders Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. Any climbdown by the Taoiseach on the issue would represent a case of "economic and political suicide", Michael McDowell, the former Progressive Democrat leader, said yesterday. According to the latest Sunday Independent/Quantum Research Poll, 78 per cent of people think Mr Kenny was absolutely correct to refuse to offer "a gesture" to Mr Sarkozy in terms of our corporation tax rate in return for more favourable rates on the €85bn IMF/EU bailout. People polled on Friday night saw the Irish corporation tax rate as the 'bedrock' of our multinational employment base and export figures. Further

Expert says Irish emigration wildly exaggerated... IRELAND IS in the grip of a “media, moral and public panic” about emigration that is not justified by the number of Irish people leaving the country, a migration expert has said. Prof James Wickham, director of the Employment Research Centre at Trinity College, told a conference yesterday that during the general election campaign politicians and the media wildly exaggerated emigration rates. “During the election we were told every day how 1,000 Irish people were leaving the country every week. The only problem with that is that a substantial number of them are returning immigrants,” said Prof Wickham. The most recent estimates published by the Central Statistics Office indicated 27,700 of 65,300 emigrants recorded in the year to the end of April 2010 were Irish. Prof Wickham said there is a very real danger that the “media, moral and public panic” surrounding emigration could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “The rhetoric

Census to answer questions about state of nation... ARE WE losing our religion and getting divorced more often than before as the recession tightens its grip? How many of us are moving abroad to find work and escape the economic crisis? These questions and many more will be answered by Census 2011, which takes place on Sunday, April 10th, and will provide researchers with a treasure trove of statistical data to pore over to determine the state of the nation. Some 5,000 staff working for the Central Statistics Office (CSO), who are called enumerators, will begin distributing green Census 2011 forms to all 1.8 million households across the State from today. Everyone who is in the State on Sunday, April 10th, must fill in one of the 24-page forms, which include a range of personal questions designed to create a comprehensive picture of the social and living conditions across the State. The green forms ask for basic information about the occupants of a household such as their age

I’M WAITING for the implosion. I feel it in my gut and over many years I’ve learnt to trust gut instinct. Something just doesn’t add up. Why are so few houses on the market these days? You might be fooled into believing there is a glut of properties for sale, until you actually go out to look, whereupon you soon realise the turnover of property is so slow that you are looking at the same selection each week. Indeed, so few houses are coming on the market, particularly at the upper end, that the few potential buyers out there are now frustrated, as the choice is so limited. Why are people not selling? It makes no logical sense given what we now know about the vast numbers of mortgages in arrears. Estate agents say that homeowners at the middle to upper level are not selling because property has lost so much value of late they would prefer to hang on until the market improves. Which is all very logical and reasonable assuming these owners can hang on – but are we talking about