As house prices cool, auctioneers try to keep home fires burning

WHAT happened yesterday at Pfizer in Cork, where hundreds of jobs were put at risk, is a stark reminder that not everything is rosy in the Irish economy.

Coming so soon after similar gloomy news from FCI in Fermoy and Motorola in Mahon, it proves nothing or no one is invulnerable, even in established and apparently secure employment.

Personal and local economic security can be jeopardised at the stroke of a pen wielded in some corporate HQ often thousands of miles away.