This book examines how the Celtic Tiger, a high-growth performing economy, fell into a macroeconomic abyss. It is a story that shows how the Irish economy moved from a property market crisis to a banking crisis and fiscal crisis, and how these three crises produced a fourth crisis, the massive financial crisis of 2010. Against the backdrop of the newly created eurozone, the book demonstrates the way in which a housing boom was transformed into a property market bubble through excessive credit creation. Accompanying the property market bubble buoyant property-related taxes enabled a profligate ... More

This book examines how the Celtic Tiger, a high-growth performing economy, fell into a macroeconomic abyss. It is a story that shows how the Irish economy moved from a property market crisis to a banking crisis and fiscal crisis, and how these three crises produced a fourth crisis, the massive financial crisis of 2010. Against the backdrop of the newly created eurozone, the book demonstrates the way in which a housing boom was transformed into a property market bubble through excessive credit creation. Accompanying the property market bubble buoyant property-related taxes enabled a profligate government to over-spend and under-tax. Few, both in Ireland or Europe, recognized the danger signals because the prevailing economic ideology suggested that financial markets could self-regulate. The book analyses the roles of banks, builders, developers, regulators (the EU, the ECB, the Central Bank of Ireland, and the Irish Financial Regulator), economists, the media, and a property-driven populace during the various unfolding stages of the downfall of the Celtic Tiger. It considers throughout two questions: who or what was responsible for what happened and in what sense? Could actions have been taken at various stages to prevent the final recourse to the bail out? Finally, the book addresses the future of the Celtic Tiger and discusses the impact of measures to help resolve the current Euro debt crisis as well as the underlying lessons to be learned from this traumatic period in Ireland’s economic and financial history.