Renaissance city - €90m development announced

TWO phrases that will forever rankle with a certain generation of Irish person are the economists’ and bankers’ “it’s different this time” and Bertie Ahern’s “we’ll have nothing worse than a soft landing”.

Almost a decade later they still sting because of the deceit involved and because we really should have known better than to swallow such transparent, self-serving porkie pies.

That hard, once-in-a-lifetime lesson also overshadows any announcement of new, multi-million developments like yesterday’s which detailed O’Callaghan Properties’ plans for a €90m office complex in Cork City centre.