Dublin property prices falling by €4,500 a month

[tumeltyni]

...why, for the first decade that anyone can remember, have we failed to launch a new internationally successful quality popular music group?

This is my pet issue, the importance of which is completely ignored by politicians. They think of music (and other art forms) as a nice little hobby for people, and don't recognise the revenue that could be generated through a thriving music industry. They pay lip service to the importance of music education for all children, but they mean classfuls of recorders, without a qualified recorder teacher, and 49% of schools in this country don't offer the option of Leaving Cert Music.* I see Jan O'Sullivan specifically mentioned music education in her statement on what she would fix in the education system, I hope she's read up on the Local Music Education Partnerships that we should be rolling out across the country. But that's slightly off-topic...

*Figure given in a Curriculum and Assessment lecture I attended, I don't know the lecturer's source for that but I'm not surprised.

[nonpartyboy]

In the fullness of time,history will show that the FF/PD coalition wrecked this country for a generation to come.The opposition needn't be dancing in the streets either their failure to provide any type of alternative policies except anyone but FF government are nearly as bad.
If anything good is to come out of this whole mess,then hopefully it will be the destruction of the FF/FG duopoly,where the decent honest members of both parties come together to form a party for the people and cast out the scammers,taxevaders,strokers,criminals etc etc.
For those who are not already aware,the civil war is over !.

[JCSkinner]

You're talking about an accountant without a bank account who signed blank cheques for a man who bought islands and mansions with 171 times his income without ever asking any questions.
Is it any wonder we're in such trouble now?

It takes a society to create societal conditions.

And it takes blind sheep like you to elect a crook like him.

[untouchable]

As a non expert on this issue it seems to me that the rise in interest rates and the low rental returns, and the stagnation (maybe fall) in house prices will drive the speculators out of the irish market, if they are still left. Remember they were buying 40% of all new units in recent years and aggravating the price rise for first time buyers.
All this coupled with the the fact that current prices are beyond all but the very good income first timers, must compound the freezing or even collapse.With the speculators/investors pulling back and the first time buyers also left out, who will continue to fuel the market. ?
The first time buyer is the lynchpin of the whole chain of activity/buying and selling.
We have seen this before in the U.K. It may be a very cold wind when it comes. The government will continue to "talk up" the market on behalf of the builders ,but that wont last long either.

[untouchable]

In the fullness of time,history will show that the FF/PD coalition wrecked this country for a generation to come.The opposition needn't be dancing in the streets either their failure to provide any type of alternative policies except anyone but FF government are nearly as bad.
If anything good is to come out of this whole mess,then hopefully it will be the destruction of the FF/FG duopoly,where the decent honest members of both parties come together to form a party for the people and cast out the scammers,taxevaders,strokers,criminals etc etc.
For those who are not already aware,the civil war is over !.

Your new but I like you.! Are you old enough though to vote.?

[nonpartyboy]

Your new but I like you.! Are you old enough though to vote.?

Indeed i am.But if you don't like the options,what then ?

[Catalpa]

What would you see as best-case scenario?

It's waaay too late for the best case scenario, which was that the fruits of the boom over the last 15 years should have been used to plan for the future. I realise this radical concept melts the brains of our political class, but still.

We got the massive wave of FDI in in the mid-to-late-90s. Yes, very good. Kickstarted the economy. Once a critical mass of global-trading FDI in an industry was in place, there should have been a determined and concerted effort to build indiginous firms which took the experience and technology gained by the people working in the foreign firms and improved on it. You know, like what the Japanese did throughout the 70s and 80s. Creating real Irish firms with an actual real competitive advantage, creating products and providing services that other countries actually wanted to buy.

Allowing a situation to develop where 90% of our exports are produced by FDI firms is a shocking abandonment of all prudence. It is, in fact, an act of national vandalism.

We could easily have been focusing efforts on green technology - renewable energy, biofuels, clean production processes, organic agriculture.....again, R&D creating Irish firms with innovative products and technology patents that other countries want to buy/licence. We could have spent the last 10 years building at least some level of energy independence and security - instead we are utterly dependent on oil imports in an increasingly unstable world.

We should have spent some of the wave of cash flowing into the public coffers to tackle our antiquated and ludicrously inefficient public sector. Instead we just threw billions upon billions at broken systems. We pissed it up against the wall, basically. Now we're stuck with a bloated, inefficient, costly public sector at the end of the boom. Genius.

We should have taken action to get real infrastructure -including public transport - in place in a cost effective manner. We've wasted billions on a couple of decent roads and the LUAS - other countries would have done much better with the huge amount we've spent on infrastructure. Part of this should have been a clear, coherent, concerted effort towards real regional development, avoiding the whole stupid "Dublin begins in Cavan" scenario we now "enjoy". Our corrupt planning system should have been overhauled. We should have built up, with coherent joined-up development plans creating sustainable communities, not endless sprawling amenity-free suburban ghettoes.

Had the Bacon reports been implemented with a will, had the Central Bank been awake, had the financial regulator been reeling in the banks from toxic lending practices, had anyone in charge had any appreciation that joining the euro meant interest rates here for the last 6 years were dangerously low for a booming economy, and that therefore measures were necessary - nay, vital - to reduce excess liquidity...then the housing bubble would never have happened in the first place. It's too late now, that bubble has popped.

Inaction, lack of vision, lack of planning, incompetence, waste, corruption, stupidity....an awful, awful Government of liars, crooks, chancers and clowns.

What's the best case scenario now, given that we're in this situation? I'm not sure. I can't see any good way for this to end, or for us to muddle through. The economy is so unbalanced that taking any action could make things even worse. The only thing that is certain is that FF/PD simply aren't up to the job. They are the ones that got us into this mess, they have had 10 years in which to show their "leadership" qualities, they don't even realise that there is anything to be concerned about, or that there is any alternative policy to simple rampant gombeenism.

Radical surgery is needed. But nobody seems up to the job.

Excellent Post Sidewinder...I fully concur!

[untouchable]

I read a wonderful witticism somewhere, some years ago:

"If the Dutch had Ireland they would feed all of Europe-If the irish had Holland they would drown themselves"
Yet we,as a nation, produce many fine entrepreneurs who exploit and advantage themselves both in Ireland & abroad.Our young people travel the world and find success in whatever field they pursue.
Irish Politics has always been parish pump/ pork barrel a la extreme.
It has to end. But who will grasp the nettle.?
"Little America" is a small island, off the coast of Europe. "Public -Private partnership" its called here.In reality this is the ugliest face of capitalism.
Why oh why, have we inherited a gombeen political class driving our country towards a rich-poor divide and economic destruction.
Haughey will never be dead. His politics will haunt this country for another generation.The evil that he initiated will live long after him. Bad cess.

[feargach]

Maybe we can tilt the balance more towards info and analysis rather than angry editorialising...

What will the proposed NDP (assuming it's followed up in any way) do to the apparent bust in the housing market?

Will it have the effect of preventing a further fall in the market?

[kerrynorth]

You're talking about an accountant without a bank account who signed blank cheques for a man who bought islands and mansions with 171 times his income without ever asking any questions.
Is it any wonder we're in such trouble now?

Can we once and for all get this nailed down. Bertie is not nor never was an accountant. Attending a couple of day courses in UCD does not make you an accountant. The previous use by Bertie of UCD in his CV is about as credible of what comes out of his mouth at election time. It is the great unspoken of Irish politics that Bertie has consistently lied about his education.

Bertie was never more than a Clerical Officer pen pusher who just happened to work in the accounts dept. of the Mater Hospital.