I read the same Fintan O’Toole article and thought it was excellent - but utopian. The problem is, the Irish people decided last May to stick with the status quo. They decided that they wanted more of the same crapology we’ve had for the last 20 years. FF were basically told by the electorate: we endorse your ideas and general direction, just keep the party rolling. When it comes to voting, people think: nevermind the quality, look at the thickness (pun intended).
So the debate is huge and spreads its tentacles into every layer of Irish society, in the health system, the transport system, the economy, the environment. All of it links back to the fundamental choice we made as a nation to find growth and prosperity through an unsustainable property splurge. Now that the bubble is bursting, there is this frantic attempt to talk it up again.
One general rule about bubbles is that the bigger they were, the harder the come down. Since our bubble was enormous, the comedown will be equally catastrophic. And I am not a naysayer (I hope), just being realistic.

Now, we have had an economy run by anecdotes for ten years, but the anecdotes are running out, along with the credit.

By the way, do you not think it’s absolutely fascinating about us Irish that we can completely ignore the international credit meltdown and argue that sour grapes on the part of mealy mouthers is “talking down” the economy? I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10, how fucking nuts is that? That’s nuts that’s gone to nuts college and has gotten a PhD in being fucking nuts.

The thing here is, as fintan O’Toole argued in yesterday’s Times, we can still have a decent economy and strive for decent services, if only we recognise where the fault lines are, and fix them.

The problem is that some of the fault lines in the Irish economy are directly linked to the financial backers of Fianna Fáil, and they sure as hell don’t want the kind of changes needed in order to put us back on track.

That’s why Brian Cowen’s talk is all about us cutting back, and not say tackling land speculation or the implementation of a true meritocracy-based system for the awarding of government contracts. I’m thinking of the truly staggering cash injection into the Irish construction industry that FF has promised, JUST as the boom winds down! I mean, where the fuck were these projects for the past ten years? Isn’t it funny how when our ability to borrow to finance the lifestyles of the construction bloc in Ireland runs low, the government steps in and uses our tax money to do exactly the same? and billions of it as well. As Tom Parlon made very clear last week, there’s a lot of money still to be made in construction in Ireland. It’s going to happen through government contracts, so, you know, if you know people who know people, it might do you some good.

We can speculate why that is - perhaps a combination of immigrants fleeing the country because they no longer work on construction sites, or sellers deciding to abandon the attempt to sell their properties and instead rent them out. The second reason means the amount of overhang might be even greater than the “experts” have let on. And the first just spells a huge disaster for the Irish economy. Either way, it ain’t pretty.

This time last year, Daft.ie was already the most trafficked Irish site on the web.

http://www.iqcontent.com/blog/2006/10/word-of-mouth-marketing-and-irelands-biggest-property-website

and from ENN, Ireland’s IT Newswire, 7 November 2006: http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9842696.html

“Daft.ie was named in September [2006] as the most trafficked Irish website with over 38 million page impressions per month from 600,000 unique visitors by the independent website auditors ABCE.

In March 2007, that had risen to 760,113 unique visitors per month, an increase of 26% during a time when the amount of rental properties actually dropped, and the amount of houses for sale increased by over 200% It’s hard to see any correlation between increased usage of the site and the static figures for rental properties and the 200% increase in properties for sale. i’m going to say that it’s telling us something more about those who own property in Ireland, than Daft.ie.

From March ‘07 to now, the amount of rental properties jumped from 4,000 to 9,000, while the amount of houses for sale kept on rising, from 30,000 to 55,000 units.

Having said all that, of course you’re right about treating these figures with caution. Still, gets one thinking though, especially when those figures are put into context of the fact that 15% of all housing in Ireland lies empty, and that the Irish media has a vested interest in property - through advertising sales and, in the case of the Irish Times, as proprietors of a property website which they spent millions of Euro in acquiring.