Construction worries - Housing fear may be well founded

FOR some time, economists have warned of an imminent downturn in Ireland’s housing boom. Depending on the guru, predictions have ranged from a flattening of the market to a tailspin, ending in a crash landing.

Invariably, such gloom-laden forecasts always bear an element of self-fulfilling prophecy, a danger heightened by the fact that the property market has become the engine room of the Irish economy.

The cyclical nature of the construction industry means that, sooner or later, the bubble will either deflate gently or go off with a bang, resonating right across the economy.