Ireland not muddied in Pigs talk

Chartered Surveyors in party modeA select bunch of about 1,000 attended the annual Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland dinner in the Burlington hotel last Thursday. The great and the good of the property industry were out in force and listened intently as guest speaker Dennis Turner, former chief economist at HSBC, bamboozled the gathered throng with complex economic thinking.

Though he managed to occasionally entertain with self-deprecating jokes about economists, it didn’t help that he poured cold water all over the Euro and its future. This, on the very day Ireland had secured the deal on the promissory notes.

In a concession to his hosts he was good enough to omit Ireland from the Pigs of Europe as he dismissed Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain as basket cases and disasters waiting to happen.

Not to worry, the assembled revellers weren’t going to let a former UK bank executive ruin their night as they hastened to the bar to discuss more pressing concerns.