Irish Examiner view: End this fleecing of the weakest

Exploited homebuyers need help and protection from cowboy builders.

Earlier this week an Oireachtas committee heard that around 100,000 Celtic Tiger apartments or homes need extensive renovation to meet basic safety standards. File photo: PA

Any reference to the long-gone Celtic Tiger days, to the wild excesses we imagined as normal, seems passe and an embarrassing reminder of our greed and silliness. 

Most of us, certainly our retired bankers and regulators, have moved on as best we can from that catastrophe, even though the continuing imposition of private bank debt on the public purse still leaves a sour taste. That taste may be academic for most of us but one group of citizens deals with a huge, distressing legacy from those light-touch regulation days on a daily basis.