Asking the Right Questions
Rental Increases and the Merseyside Derby…
One might have thought after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger bubble we would have figured out the role of housing in our society. It doesn’t appear to be the case. As measured by the consumer price index, Irish inflation fell by -0.1% in the…
US Presidential Election: The Nuclear Option
Donald Trump bad. Hilary Clinton good. That is the general narrative on most discussions around the impact of the 2016 US Presidential election on the global economy, the US economy and the Irish economy. The Economist Magazine has become the latest media publication to…
Annual budget sideshow is just a distraction
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes Another year, another budget! This time every year in Ireland the focus moves to the budget announcement of the Irish government. We are forced…
Interview Series: 11 Questions for the Minister of Finance
Ireland was the fastest growing economy in Europe in 2015, ranked by percentage change in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the economic indicator which captures the value of all goods and services in an economy. While there has also been a major improvement across a…
Banking Inquiry and the Celtic Tiger Villain
Two well-known villains were back in the media last week, making headlines for different reasons. Lance Armstrong was in France to ride the Tour de France route as part of a charity race to raise money for leukemia research, while at home in Ireland,…
Thoughts on the mortgage arrears crisis; the great contradiction
Last Friday the Central Bank of Ireland released the Residential Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions Statistics, updated to December 31st 2014. The report is particularly timely given the huge increase in repossession orders being lodged with the courts and as more high profile cases garner…
Buy Irish Property, you can’t lose?!
“Your house will be worth 20pc more by 2017 – ESRI” read the headline of an article in the Irish Independent last week referring to a paper released by the Economic Social and Research Institute (ESRI) entitled Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble? An Assessment…
