What is the realistic economic state of Ireland

Sceala Philosopher Location: Carlow

I read this on a economist.com google. The author gives a positive view of Ireland and the future for business here. Are they right! I hope so.
I am just a builder, the only economics I know are my own book keeping and getting by, like most of us. You with the brains for these things. Who is more right, the pessimistic Fintan O'Toole and Jim Power, who both say we are finished, no where to run. or the author of the economist, who says we are being unfairly victimized by the markets.
Or is it a combination, like Bamboozileer said, the foreign speculators are all now running scared. They have pushed Ireland too far, were too greedy. Even they now realise that the whole EU house could fall.
Maybe he is right. This morning all the Big EU leaders have made a joint speech to try and calm the markets.

Tiger, tiger, burning dull
Emerald isle in the red
When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out: The World’s Most Resilient Country and its Struggle to Rise Again. By David Lynch. Palgrave Macmillan
EUROPE has seen many spectacular stories in the past 20 years, but few can match Ireland’s rise and fall. A depressed and indebted country in the late 1980s suddenly became the bubbly Celtic Tiger of the 1990s. Then the bubble just as suddenly burst, an experience that could cost Ireland as much as one-fifth of GDP annually in years to come. In 2010 the budget deficit will be at least 32% of GDP and the public debt is almost 100% of GDP. After a brief interlude of net immigration, the Irish are emigrating once again.

Was the Celtic Tiger all an illusion? Fintan O’Toole, a veteran leftist writer, seems to think it was. His previous book, “Ship of Fools”, examined the Irish property bubble, how it inflated and deflated, and seduced politicians, bankers and officials alike. His angry new book enlarges on the theme, denouncing not only the political parties (especially ruling Fianna Fail), regulators and civil servants, but also the Roman Catholic church and even the education and health-care systems. Ireland, he concludes, needs to start all over again and create what he calls a new republic.

Mr O’Toole’s writing is splendidly sharp, but his conclusion seems too gloomy. Despite the excesses of Ireland’s time as a Celtic Tiger, the country has changed for the better. Real businesses, from pharmaceuticals to computing, continue to flourish. Foreign investment is still being lured in by low corporate-tax rates. The country churns out many good graduates. Public services are patchy but improving, as is infrastructure. Corruption is a problem, but it is surely not as bad as in many other European countries. And, as elsewhere, the church’s baleful influence is now hugely diminished.

It is true, though, that Ireland’s political class has been tried and found wanting, a theme pursued also in David Lynch’s book, “When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out”. He begins, appositely enough, with a gathering of property developers and their political cronies in the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway races. Much of the rest of his tale concerns Sean Fitzpatrick’s disastrous mortgage bank, Anglo Irish. It was the troubles of Anglo Irish that led to the extraordinary decision by Brian Cowen, the Fianna Fail prime minister, taken in the small hours of September 30th 2008, to guarantee all bank deposits in Ireland—and hence to incur a bill that has now reached almost a third of GDP.

Mr Lynch is less apocalyptic than Mr O’Toole. The Irish miracle was not illusory. Female participation in the workforce shot up. The European single market brought big benefits. Productivity rose, especially in manufacturing. The bust has at least produced cheaper housing, as well as (for now) curing the Irish of their property obsession. Wage cuts are now restoring lost competitiveness. And the voters may well decide to cast out Mr Cowen and Fianna Fail at the next election, which may come as early as next year.

Recent bond-market tremors show that Ireland is not out of the woods. It may yet have to borrow from the new euro-zone bail-out fund. Its membership of the euro has helped to protect it during the bust, but could become painful if both the dollar and the pound keep depreciating. Yet its economy is more flexible than many others, its demographic outlook is relatively favourable and its public officials are better than most. Set against Greece, Portugal, Spain and even Italy, its prospects still look bright, whatever Mr O’Toole thinks.
http://www.economist.com/node/17460588?story_id=17460588&fsrc=rss

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What is the realistic economic state of Ireland