THE country is facing crippling interest payments of €10 billion a year after the European Union and IMF agreed to an €85bn rescue package to fund the economy for the next three years.

The bulk of the money, €50bn, will be used to pay for the day-to-day running of the country.

The banks will receive €8bn immediately to restore their cash reserves; €2bn will be on standby and a further €25bn will be available if and when they need it.

The money will come from the IMF, our Euro area partners and loans from Britain, Denmark and Sweden.

In addition, the country has been told to take €12.5bn from the National Pension Reserve Fund and use €5bn the NTMA had already borrowed to pay for early 2011.

The expected average interest rate for the bailout will be 5.83%.

By 2013 the national debt is expected to rise above €200bn and by then almost a quarter of all taxes raised will be used to pay interest service costs.

At the end of the term this is expected to have climbed to €9.66bn a year if the banks have drawn down the full amount of capital. In return, Ireland has not been ordered to raise its corporation tax and it has been given an extra year to get its borrowing levels back within targets for the eurozone.

Senior bondholders in the banks will not have to absorb any losses, after this proposal was blocked in Europe because it was feared the move would undermine the stability of the entire financial system.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the agreement was “the best available deal for Ireland”.

He said the interest rate was cheaper than Ireland could have got on its own and the deal was “necessary to allow us to fund our budgets over the coming years”.

Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan said the interest rates meant the country was “sold out” in the negotiations.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the IMF and EU walked over a Government without backbone or authority.

The details first emerged in Brussels at 6.15pm yesterday when Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker announced the deal between Europe’s finance ministers had been struck.

Twenty minutes later Mr Cowen addressed a press conference at Government Buildings and spelled out how Ireland would be funded up to 2013.

The agreement demands that Ireland broadly sticks to the terms of the four-year plan announced last week, introduces a property tax and raises the pension age.

A fiscal responsibility law will have to be imposed on Government and an advisory council on budgetary affairs established.

The minimum wage will have to fall by €1 an hour and employers will be given greater scope to plead an inability to pay.

Future governments will also be restricted during the lifetime of the deal. If they raise any revenue not budgeted for, it will have to go towards paying debt rather than additional services.

In terms of the banks, €10bn will be made available straight away. Of this €8bn will be channelled into the institutions directly and €2bn as a short- term contingency fund.

From the immediate €8bn pot the Central Bank said Allied Irish Bank will get €5.2bn, Bank of Ireland €2.2bn, EBS €438m and Irish Life and Permanent €98m.

A further €25bn will be available for the banks to be drawn down when they require and after the Central Bank enforces new capital requirements.

The amount of money the banks take from the remainder of the fund will be added to the national debt and this will increase interest costs.

The breakdown of the rescue package means that €12.5bn will be taken from the National Pensions Reserve Fund and €5bn from our own cash reserves. The European Commission’s stabilisation fund will supply €22.5bn.

The Euro area’s emergency stabilisation fund will also lend us €17.7bn; Britain will offer €3.8bn; €390m will be given by Denmark and Sweden will lend us €598m.

The IMF will provide €22.5bn in a term of up to 10 years, with a minimum interest rate of 3.1% based on the current market. Head of the IMF team in Ireland Ajai Chopra said he was confident the Government will pass the budget on December 7.

He also said the open and flexible nature of our economy meant it was in a “much better situation than many others to rebound quickly”.

Report by Conor Ryan, Paul O’Brien, Ann Cahill and Brian O’Mahony – Irish Examiner

Ireland Property – Daft Property – http://daftproperty.blogspot.com

Low rates, low down-payments and low prices are a big bonus to those buyers currently in the Phoenix real estate market.

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Phoenix in Photos. A look at a F.L. Wright designed church located in North Central Phoenix.

photos: Artur Ciesielski

North Central Phoenix has quite a few treats for aficionados of modernism.  Amongst the residential modern homes are also some public or semi-public spaces like the First Christian Church on 7th Avenue.

This church was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1950.  It is constructed from stone, a lot of stone, and concrete. The original design was changed slightly as the first clients went belly-up and the church was not built until the early 1970′s.  This is s wonderful example of Wright’s architectural philosophy. 

It’s a building that’s quite striking and alluring from a distance and it has a lot to offer at a closer distance.

Where:

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Reminiscent of Millionaires Row, The Chateau tries to put the millionaires back on the row with this eccentric project.

Phoenix has a fairly rich history of grand homes, a vibrant Beautiful City Movement, Millionaires Row and the Chateau On Central tries to capitalize on the wealth that used to straddle Central Avenue and these parts of town and it is also a homage to the historic neighborhoods surrounding it and the ideals of a vibrant city.

photos: Artur Ciesielski

Chateau on Central is a community of townhomes adjacent to the Willo Historic District and along the, still young, Metro Light Rail.

There are six floor-plans.  Each 4 stories plus a basement.  The largest floor-plan is the Palaise with an astonishing 8,252 square feet.  A marvel of size for any urbanized city, but the rest of the floor-plans are smaller as follows: Forteresse at 5,493, Manoir at 5,757, Royal at 5,224, Majestique at 5,485 and the smallest, Imperial at 5,192 square feet.

Each is superbly appointed as expected.  Many feature multiple terraces, rooftop terraces which can have private pools, a spa, fireplaces or a greenhouse amongst other ideas.

The original project was doomed along with the economy.  It lingered for a few years to be reborn into still a weak economy, but one in the optimistic phase of a cycle and with more realistic prices starting at just a few bucks shy of .4 million.  A big discount indeed especially considering the high cost of construction, but is it the right project for the area or even for this period this time?  Only time and the market will show.

Home buyers in this price range sure have a huge range of choices even near-by in some of the more prestigious historic neighborhoods like Encanto-Palmcroft or then the penthouse at Lexington One or a bit further off in North Central Phoenix, the Biltmore Area or Paradise Valley.  Of course these are not exactly comparable properties.  There is nothing in the market or nothing like Chateau period in Phoenix so it’s hard to gauge anything by similarity, but buyers are open to multiple choices. 

‘Chateau’ has a lot to offer and it is a unique property which includes one of my favorite building materials – the brick, but will the unique features, architecture and location be enough the lure in buyers in this price bracket.  I sure hope so: I wish the project to be a success as a success will certainly help further bring much needed life to Urban Phoenix.

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Householder to carry heavy can for errant banks…

HOUSEHOLDERS will be hammered. That is the clear message from the four-year austerity plan issued yesterday by the Government.

In plain language, if you own a home, have a pension and a son or daughter in college, you will end up more than €4,600 a year worse off by the time all of the changes in this plan have been implemented.

Many of the changes will impact early on in the four-year plan, putting additional pain on family budgets.

Middle Ireland is set to pay an extortionate price for the failures of our banks, our regulators and the Government. And significantly, there are no measures in the four-year plan to levy the errant banks.

Instead, homeowners will bear the brunt.

Personal finance experts last night warned the taxes, levies and charges would push many families over the edge financially.

The downturn has left many consumers just one bill away from financial collapse. The severe measures in the four-year plan could be enough to sink many homeowners struggling to pay bills.

People will enter the tax net at a much lower level of income, they will pay tax at the higher 41pc rate on more of their income, and will get lower tax credits than at present.

A tax credit is basically the amount of income you can earn before paying tax. The swinging changes will mean that income tax levels will come back to 2006 levels, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said yesterday.

The changes will mean that a married couple, with one income of €55,000, will see their annual income reduced by €2,310 from the tax changes planned over the next four years.

But one of the biggest surprises was the way pensions investment was pounded.

There is real pain for anyone sensible enough to take out a private pension plan.

Those providing for their retirement will now find it costs them an extra €32 for every €100 they put into a pension.

This is because of the loss of tax relief from PRSI and health levy payments when money is put into a pensions, and from the gradual reduction in the tax relief rate for pensions investment for higher taxpayers from 41pc to 20pc.

All this means it will make little sense to invest in a pension. Additional voluntary contributions (AVSs), used by those with inadequate pensions to top up their retirement fund, will no longer be worth investing in.

On top of all of this, college fees are set to surge by an additional €500 a year.

Then there will be higher VAT (value added tax) on goods and services – a measure which will hit everyone.

Middle Ireland will be disproportionately hit by the new site valuation tax to come in by 2013, even if it is set to average €200, lower than expected.

This is because measures will have to be put in place to exempt low-paid workers and those who have paid stamp duty. The net effect will be that middle Ireland will be carrying the burden here too.

Other taxes and levies, such as the doubling of carbon tax and the loss of tax reliefs, will mean it is set to become very expensive to live in this country.

The banks broke us, but the taxpayer ends up carrying the can.

Report by Charlie Weston – Irish Independent

Ireland Property – Daft Property – http://daftproperty.blogspot.com

Simple quality tools can help improve how the product, in this case a home, is presented.

Everything being sold is done so visually so why are so many photos of homes for sale so bad.  There are dozens of reasons, from unqualified Realtors taking photos with phone cameras to clients who don’t demand or expect a top quality presentation.  

In the era where competition is so fierce for the limited amount of buyers and where 90%+ of buyers begin their home search online it is only prudent to put some effort into creating great photos: superb visualizations of the product being sold or hire someone else to do it.

There are several tool which will allow you to take and improve photos.  A good example of what can be done is the photos below.  The lower photo was a quick snapshot taken from the seat of my bike while I was riding it in motion.  The photo above is a quickly completed improvement which took, at most 2 minutes.

The basic tool set.

1. A DSLR (digital version of a single lens reflex camera).  A camera able to take photos in RAW, or unprocessed photos because you can do so much more with clean fully integrated files.  A good choice is a Pentax K-5 and a 12-24mm lens. Those two is all you need.  At 12mm the lens if perfect to take in even small bathrooms without a fish eye affect and long enough to zoom in, and if you shoot raw zooming in more with the software will not degrade the photo quality much.

2. Adobe Lightroom 3.  This is an amazing program that as advanced as you’ll need without the steep learning curve of Photoshop.  If you shoot in RAW it will allow you to add light into shadow areas, correct colors, clipping and in the newest version 3 even correct converging verticals like in the photo above. 

Just that single feature is enough to put your clients homes ahead visually over other competing homes. Lightroom 3 is very easy to operate and learn and you can quickly go through the 20-50 photos.  In addition Lightroom 3 is the perfect organizational tools for photos and if you do videos, you can store them there as well.

The tools are simple, but high quality with powerful abilities.  Pair them with a couple of books on the basics of architectural photography and a book on getting the most out of Lightroom and any Realtor will be able to have stellar photos if not a marked improvement over the quick jpeg snaps.  This does take a bit of an investment, but considering what is at stake, an investment of K in tools which can be spread over a 2+ year period at a minimum is very small.

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Cowen accepts the bailout but not the responsibility…

As a result of an ill-judged edit, viewers of the national broadcaster missed the liveliest and most telling part of the press conference held tonight at Government Buildings by the current Taoiseach Brian Cowen and the current Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan. TV3 host and Irish Times columnist Vincent Browne asked Cowen if he accepted that he was to blame for “screwing up the country”; that he more than anyone else was responsible for Ireland’s economic catastrophe and that his continued presence in office was “a liability” to the nation.

“I don’t accept that at all,” replied Cowen, grumpily. “I don’t accept your contention [or] the premise to your question that I’m the bogeyman you’re looking for.”

Minutes earlier, a Bloomberg television journalist who asked if Cowen had ever thought of packing it in was told that the process of electing a Taoiseach was a parliamentary matter… mumble, jargon, mumble. As for whether or not he would lead Fianna Fáil into the next election, “obviously that is my intention”. All of this enraged Browne who temporarily became the voice of a nation’s anger about the bizarre lack of contrition on the part of a Taoiseach who insisted there was a rationale for every decision (that he would explain to Browne on another occasion if he wanted) and that every decision the Government had made was “in the national interest”. “I have always taken full responsibility for my actions,” said Cowen, lost in doublethink and seeming almost resentful of the television cameras.

He was also unable to answer Browne’s inquiry about the estimated level of Irish citizens’ future debt burden. This, he explained, would depend on the size of the drawdown on the assistance offered, which in turn would hang on further stress-testing of the black-hole-banks. Something to look forward to, then.

There is at this point no confirmation on the total size of the bailout from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (plus some bilateral loans from the UK and Sweden thrown in for good measure). Lenihan earlier in the day said it would not be “a three-figure sum”, by which he really meant it would not be a 12-figure sum of €100,000,000,000 or more. In other words, it will be less than €100 billion, according to the Government. EU sources and UK banking analysts say something similar, in case the Government’s best guesses are no longer enough.

The only thing the press conference confirmed tonight, amid a blaze of obfuscation, was that Ireland will be taking the money. As a result, Irish public finances, for the next three years at least, will be subject to “regular reviews” by the external monitors that control the purse-strings. Whether the Government will be taking responsibility – as the concept of responsibility is understood by the (mostly livid) Irish viewers of the BBC and Sky (which kindly broadcast the press conference in full) – is as yet uncertain.

It’s an infinitesimally small comfort, but Browne’s series of questions, transmitted live to millions across Europe, will at least have shown internationally that Irish people are not okay with incompetence, not sanguine about fecklessness, not calmly accepting of economic negligence. This, in the long run, can only improve our reputation. Shortly after Browne’s indignant contribution, the two Brians exited stage left. TV3, for its part, is broadcasting a special edition of Tonight with Vincent Browne at 10.30 pm, where the rational apoplexy will continue.

Report Laura Slattery – Irish Times

Ireland Property – Daft Property – http://daftproperty.blogspot.com

A nation’s outrage to drive Cowen out…

Poll: public welcomes the IMF but roundly furious at government ‘lies’

THE Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, and his Government are at risk of being ignominiously driven from office, such is the level of anger sweeping the country this weekend.

The people have broadly welcomed the arrival of the IMF, are largely indifferent to emotive sentiment associated with a perceived loss of national sovereignty, but are roundly furious at the manner in which the Government has “lied” about the unprecedented events of last week.

As the Government now strives to further “spin” itself out of what is, by any measure, a glaringly obvious credibility deficit, its efforts to do so will be hampered by a disintegration of cohesion within its own ranks. This weekend, the Taoiseach is at odds with the governor of the Central Bank; the Minister for Finance is in agreement with the governor and, therefore, at odds with the Taoiseach; and at least two senior Cabinet ministers are smarting at having been so blatantly exposed by the political leadership of Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan.

In an attempt to hold on to power, the Government is expected to attempt to explain away its misleading of a bynow hugely irate public upon the publication of a four-year economic plan on either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. But this weekend, from within its own ranks, the Government has been told that it had fundamentally, some would say fatally, undermined the trust of the people. Today the former Minister for Defence, Willie O’Dea, a Fianna Fail TD, writing in the Sunday Independent, says “the Government’s actions and comments over the past 10 days have fundamentally undermined public trust”.

It now seems certain that Fine Gael and Labour, in particular, will seize upon public anger in an attempt to remove the Government, possibly before Christmas. Mr Cowen has already rejected calls for his resignation from an opposition that has scented his blood and that of the Government, but it is unlikely that either Fine Gael or Labour will leave it at that. Yesterday there was word from within both parties that they may move to mobilise the power of the people to drive the Government from office. “The people are ready to march on Government Buildings, like I have never sensed before,” a senior Fine Gael figure said yesterday.

But also in this newspaper, the economist Colm McCarthy echoes the view of the people on the question of national sovereignty when he says that while blame is necessary and unavoidable, “some of the outpourings during the week have been hysterical”. A nationwide Sunday Independent/ Quantum Research poll, the first to be taken since the arrival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and EU chiefs to, effectively, bail out a bankrupt country, has established precisely what is causing such widespread anger this weekend.

The poll has found, in summary, that the people are deeply resentful at the manner in which they believe the Government “lied” to them last week, and, consequentially, at the apparent lack of respect inherent in the Coalition’s public relations strategy. As Mr O’Dea writes today: “Putting out ministers to insist that the emperor is beautifully robed when onlookers can plainly see he is stark naked cannot be justified as a media strategy, even by the most inept of communications managers.” Asked whether they welcomed the IMF intervention, 63 per cent said yes and 37 per cent said no. Asked if there was tactical advantage in the Government “lying” to the public last week, 79 per cent said no and 21 per cent said yes.

The country is divided, but largely indifferent, on the question of whether the events of last week were a betrayal of the men and women of 1916: 47 per cent said yes, but 53 per cent said no. Yesterday, talks between Irish officials and representatives of the IMF, ECB and EU resumed. The discussions centre on the public finances and external support for the banking sector. They are expected to continue for a number of days. The Government’s fouryear economic plan is likely to be published, possibly as early as this week. Lest there be any doubt, the European Commission (EC) has warned that the plan is subject to its “thorough assessment”.

Upon publication of the plan, it is expected that the Government will formally submit a request for emergency funding to the European authorities and the IMF, an application which will be considered by eurozone finance ministers in the first instance. But already there are reports emanating from within the EC that the plan, which envisages cuts and tax increases amounting to €15bn over four years, may be insufficient. There seems little doubt that these matters will be decided by the European authorities and the IMF, with the involvement of the Government here. A government source yesterday claimed that the plan, as prepared, had been broadly accepted.

He said: “The process we are involved in at the moment is to access funds for Ireland going forward, as we have withdrawn from the financial markets on the advice of the NTMA.” A most serious issue facing the Government now, however, is whether any of its declarations can be accepted as even approaching the truth after the events of the last week. Last weekend, Reuters and the BBC reported that the Government was in preliminary talks with the EU with a view to seeking financial support. While there was an element of Europe-inspired pressure being applied on the Government through leaks to the international media, the Government’s repeated denial of the substance of the leaks turned out to be untrue. Ministers Noel Dempsey and Dermot Ahern, in particular, were pushed forward to deny the reports, which Mr Ahern, at one stage, described as “fiction”. Both ministers are now said to be deeply unhappy at the manner in which they were so publicly exposed by Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan.

The credibility issue engulfing the Government was last week sharply illustrated on the RTE Prime Time programme, when the former Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, engaged in a sharp exchange with Equality Minister Pat Carey. Mr Rabbitte said to Mr Carey: “You ought to be ashamed to show your face in this studio after you have brought our country to penury tonight, and the damage that you have done to people’s livelihoods, and start the young people emigrating again. You have destroyed this economy and you engaged in lies over the weekend.

“It’s about time you went because you can do no more damage to this country, and coming on here with your oul palaver about this and that and about structuring, etc. “You ought to be ashamed of where you have brought us tonight.” Mr Carey said: “No, I’m not ashamed.” Mr Rabbitte replied: “Well you ought to be, that’s the problem with you — when you ought to be ashamed you don’t have any shame.”

The Sunday Independent/ Quantum Research poll has found that 81 per cent believed Mr Rabbitte was right to attack Mr Carey in such a manner, while only 19 per cent felt he was wrong to do so. Respondents were also asked if they agreed with the claims of ministers that poor regulation of the banks was the sole cause of the current crisis: 69 per cent said no, 31 per cent said yes. It was not until Thursday morning that a confused and increasingly anxious public was reassured somewhat by the Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan.

Mr Honohan intervened to explain that he expected a loan would be put in place, running into tens of billions of euro, to assist with Ireland’s banking emergency. But the Taoiseach repudiated Mr Honohan’s view, which he said did not necessarily reflect that of the Government. “The governor is part of the governing council of the ECB and it is a matter of public knowledge what the ECB general view has been,” Mr Cowen said.

In effect, however, Mr Cowen’s statement was also at odds with his Minister for Finance, who had told the Dail earlier in the day that he agreed with Mr Honohan’s comments. Mr Lenihan said that “a substantial contingency capital fund” could be made available to the State that could “create confidence in the firepower available but not be drawn down by the banking system”. He said this “would be a very welcome development”.

Yesterday, the former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald said: “Such an open divergence between the views of the Taoiseach and his Minister for Finance is extremely disturbing and a government so deeply divided cannot long remain in office.”

Sunday Independent

Ireland Property – Daft Property – http://daftproperty.blogspot.com

Cycling and exploring Central Phoenix

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We need to re-trace our steps and go over what a complete mess has been made of this country...

IS sovereignty of so little account that two senior cabinet members can consider throwing it away while the rest of the Government don’t even know their leaders are doing this? What is being done to our country? Who will buy us, or sell us, next?

What has really been going on since Brian Cowen concluded his disastrous occupation of the Finance Ministry and graduated to his even more disastrous holding of the job of Taoiseach?

We need to re-trace our steps and go over again what a complete mess has been made of this country’s governance, bringing us the acute embarrassments of this week.

It began with Anglo, followed by all the other banks. It then proceeded to the Lisbon Treaty vote, enhancing Europe’s powers over our sovereignty. Then it floundered into the disaster called NAMA and ended with debts that needed international rescue. It concludes with loss of sovereignty.

Anglo first. The sensational defence, by the court trustee in David Drumm’s bankruptcy hearing in Boston last Tuesday, had as its central point the fact that Anglo made €7.65m available to Drumm for fraudulent purposes.

Drumm acted honourably in the face of incorrect loan documentation. The first documents would have released him from paying back the loans. Instead, he signed new documents, in return for the bank agreeing they would not sue him, nor take his family home, and would give him long-term repayment schedules, since the shares and his income had disappeared.

Anglo reneged on this, dragging him into court in November 2009. He fought the case and tried to settle, which Anglo did not want.

The letter to Drumm of January 10, 2008, spelled out that the loan was to buy Anglo shares. It details strict security charges. The recent events in Boston now make it unlikely that Anglo will achieve anything like Drumm’s offer to them because of bankruptcy trustee Kathleen Dwyer’s claims that these claims undermine the bank.

The original circumstances under which Drumm got money to buy shares soon became apparent as money flowed out of the banks. As I have said in an earlier article, Brian Cowen, the then Finance Minister, was told, and did nothing.

The Boston hearing was widely covered — two pages in this newspaper. RTE gave the story 18 seconds. Big story, small coverage. Next day, RTE reported that the trustee was counter-suing Anglo, which is seeking to have her dismissed. RTE conceded: “This is rapidly becoming a complex and surprising court case.”

On Wednesday, the Government reassured us that taxpayers were the main concern. It came late. On the road to Damascus, our leaders, bent on further persecution of the people, had suddenly been converted to this new aim. It was not there when Anglo collapsed under Cowen’s and Lenihan’s attempts to conceal their own mismanagement; nor was it part of the brutal follow-up.

NAMA is also a brutal process. It has brought virtually all private-enterprise development to a stop; it has robbed the developers of their assets; and has sold, in circumstances repeatedly shown to be ill-judged and simplistic, hugely important portfolios for short-term public gain.

NAMA is at the root of our troubles and has not operated in taxpayers’ interests. NAMA has helped create the enormous black hole Ireland faces. It is responsible for drawing Europe into that hole.

NAMA is run by a well-regarded man, John Mulcahy. It is chaired by former civil servant and Revenue Commissioner Frank Daly. There is an academic, Brendan McDonogh. None of these men is qualified to assess a development appraisal, least of all Frank Daly, the chairman.

NAMA has distorted the property market. It prescribed the write-down without knowing how big the hole they were creating would be. Talk about ‘known unknowns’! This is an ‘unknown’ unknown, due mainly to ignorance. There are instances of prime re-development sites given discounts of 80pc because NAMA says so, and not because the market would have said so.

Here is one example: NAMA acquired from Anglo a toxic loan this year for €40m. This haircut was down from €120m. Recently, NAMA announced its sale for €180m. The valuation was very far off the mark and it was foolishly naive to boast about it. Trumpeting the eventual sale was farce bordering on tragedy.

Did all that smoke and mirrors ‘serve the taxpayer’? It beggared a developer and a bank. It created no jobs, did nothing to help the building or development industries, and provided the country with no harvest. It drove values down — and we, the people, ended up seeing an even bigger cheque being drawn on our resources.

This was not corruption. It was ignorance combined with arrogance. There was a property bubble, no doubt. But the whole sorry mess, if managed properly, would have cost the State far less.

The State should then have sought help from the ECB. Instead, NAMA dug on. The hole got darker.

If Europe cared about us, it would insist on NAMA being reversed and its grossly offensive legal constraints repealed. But Europe does not care about us. Europe is here for Europe’s sake. Europe is desperately trying to save a crumbling empire, a shaky currency and a smug bureaucracy; we are mere chaff in the wind, taking the medicine with loss of sovereignty because we foolishly voted for it in the second Lisbon Treaty referendum.

Dear, beloved country, why did you not listen to me then?

Article – Irish Independent

Ireland Property – Daft Property – http://daftproperty.blogspot.com