A lot of this seems to be down to the greed of property developers - who, no doubt aided and abetted by the banks, flooded Ireland with houses that no-one now wants to buy. I suppose that this is classic capitalism in action - just keep on building and building and building. Then, at the top of the market, a few people get very rich. After a while there are more houses than buyers and the whole thing collapses and lots of people lose out big-time.

This seems to me to be a very odd way to run the world. Still, what do I know? There's really no alternative ... is there?