Ronan Lyons | Personal Website
Ronan Lyons | Personal Website

irish economy

Will a global economic recovery be Ireland’s panacea? Dreams (and nightmares) for 2010

With the global recession being just a coincidence for Ireland, whose exports have actually grown this year, what will the likely impact of any global recovery be? This post explores two sets of scenarios, a global dream/snooze/nightmare and a domestic equivalent. Given the nature of Ireland’s economy and its exporting sector, even a global dream recovery is likely to have little economic impact in Ireland. It’s the domestic consumer that will drive our next phase of growth. Read more

It’s so cold and it’s so broken, Board Snip Nua!

I’ve always had a soft spot for song parodies, as longer established readers of the blog will probably ruefully attest. My last foray into this territory with my economic hat on was “Brother, Can you bail out my bank?” in the midst of our global financial excitement last Autumn (although I did try my hand at Copa-obama later last year). Anyway, with the launch of An Board Snip Nua’s report later today, that peculiarly Irish name, for a peculiarly Irish public sector expenditure body, will probably recede back into the depths of our subconscious until the next time national debt threatens to cripple us.

But before it does, I feel we should mark it in song. You can thank An Taoiseach’s about-turn on publication date for the missing fifth and sixth verses… but as it happens only die-hard Leonard Cohen fans know those anyway! Yes, today’s ditty is to the tune of Hallelujah, and while I think Cohen was most inventive to come up with no less than six sentences that sort of rhymed with the title word, surely An Board Snip Nua was made for rhyming with it! So, crank open your itunes and put on Cohen/Buckley/Wainwright/whatserface-from-X-factor – or else open the video below – and get singing…

Now I’ve read we are so short on bread
That even the Galway tent is dead
But you won’t really go for tax hikes, will you?
“You cut like this
Cut FAS, cut NESC
Cut the lads who print the car tax disc”,
The baffled Cowen is told by Board Snip Nua
Board Snip Nua, Board Snip Nua
Board Snip Nua, Board Snip Nua

Your vote was strong but you needed the youth
You cut stamp duty on the hoof
While the OAPs dreamt they overthrew you
They cried you
didn’t really care
They broke your vote, it collapsed in Clare
And the best that you could do was Board Snip Nua

In the 80s we were here before
We know this gloom, we left these shores
We used to live State-side before we knew you.
We’ve heard all about the ECB
But have you seen our GDP?
It’s so cold and it’s so broken; Board Snip Nua

What will you do-ah, Board Snip Nua?
Board Snip Nua, Board Snip Nua

It’s about time that you let us know
What’s really going on with our dough
But now you never tell it straight, do you?
We paid two mill to move in here
But NAMA’s going to cost us dear
And every budget cut by Board Snip Nua

Board Snip Nua, Board Snip Nua
Board Snip Nua, Board Snip Nua (repeat to fade…)

Youtube: Rufus Wainwright on Tubridy, getting the lyrics to An Board Snip Nua wrong

Is it cheaper to buy or rent?

In this post, I take a look at the maths behind buying or renting. Amazingly, even in heady market of 2006, it was cheaper to buy than rent. With rates back down at very low rates, and generous mortgage interest relief, it is once again cheaper to buy than rent – and looks set to stay that way, unless there are significant changes to the tax system. Read more

Where in Ireland has seen the biggest increase in unemployment?

My recent post on negative equity led to some discussions, particularly on irisheconomy.ie, about the financial (i.e. NAMA) and labour market (i.e. dole) implications of negative equity. Here, I use Live Register figures to work out which counties have been affected most by unemployment since the start of the recession. A group of counties from Laois up to Cavan appear worst affected, although all counties have seen unemployment at least double. Read more