When are we going to start telling it like it is?

[Wendy]

Who were we building 90,000+ homes a year for anyway?

It was unprecedented greed by developers,landowners, bankers & mortgage lenders on commission, estate agents, solicitors and newspaper property porn supplements. And as government FF not taking measures to damp it down but in fact stoking it up.

And some, though by no means all, ordinary Joes and Josephines. You must have come across some of these muppets salivating over the prospect of making a killing on their primary residence or an "investment property".

[iartaoiseach]

I disagree. The economy is falling but it falling from an abnormally high level. During the Boom our overall standards of living were higher than anywhere else in the world. I know some people will complain that they saw little from the Celtic Tiger and worked harder than ever before and I am sure that there are many people who fall into this group. I am also certain that there was a large group of Irish people who worked less than any in the history of mankind and lived like aristocrats of most societies with foreign holidays, fancy cars, planes, yachts, houses, drugs, whores etc. Despite having no money, no assets, no job and no skills. Most foreigners must have thought us a funny people.
Now it is time to return to Earth.

you are confusing bling with wealth i think. all the so called wealth was actually debt. wealth is evident in countries like holland/denmark -general standard of living is high so is standard of infrastructure healthcare school system etc. the population are not in general a load of bling merchants either. unlike this kip, we had a load of borrowed cash and we as a nation ( not everyone individually) blew it on the things you have described. Imo it was a certain level of financial immaturity combined with a pyschotic attitude to property and land ownership that resulted in the crash here. then the shower of gougers that we (40-50% of us anyway) elected lead the cheerleading and facilitated their gouger friends in setting up the great pyramid scheme that collapsed last year. the denial will continue because to tell the truth would be tantamount to suicide for the present government. continuing greed and a base sense of self preservation is what we are witnessing here. Only yesterday Eamon Ryan claimed we were out performing our neighbours in exports contradicting Cowens claim that external factors and competitveness caused the crisis - it is mainly a homegrown one exacerbated by external events. they can't even be consistent in their lies.

[Keith-M]

Still, I think the more serious lapse was neglecting to mention that women are the main breadwinners in some households. Or discounting it. Or whatever. I felt obliged to rectify that omission.

Point conceded, I'm sure there are men taking voluntary redundancy as their wives are the biggger earners.