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.

The natural and enthusiastic welcome for this kind of transformative development, and the other spectacular renaissance projects recently confirmed for the city, all add to the momentum of a widening economic recovery.

On a human level they are uplifting because they show that recovery from the most disastrous situation is possible if the hard, unforgiving lessons of failure are absorbed fully — as they must have been in these instances.