The next time some idiot politician curries favour by promising special tax breaks for some favoured area, just mention the Upper Shannon Renewal Scheme. I mentioned before that IrelandAfterNama had covered it; now NamaWineLake, one of the best sites covering the wreckage of the Irish property market, has pointed to the evidence provided by the returns of stamp duty on property sales in 2010. Counties Leitrim and Longford — both covered by the scheme — each paid only €600,000 in stamp duty in 2010:
Practically nothing was sold in Longford and Leitrim which recorded the lowest stamp duty receipts of €0.6m apiece. If the receipts were all for residential property and the average transaction price was €200,000 then that would mean about 100 homes were sold in 2010 in each county.
So as well as spoiling the scenery by cluttering the place with colonies of white houses for white settlers, the scheme has also ruined the property market for the natives. Anyone needing to sell a house, perhaps to move in pursuit of employment, will find it more difficult to sell.
Irish waterways history 