Overall real GDP growth rates – previously flattered significantly by the activities of multinational corporations – were in the early 2000s being recorded at around 5 per cent per annum, levels which, by this stage, were now attained largely because of the construction boom.1 Role of bank credit Qualitatively similar features to the Irish boom were also in evidence in other countries in those years.
What made Ireland distinctive was the scale of credit expansion, and the fact that a bank credit-fuelled property-price bubble was accompanied – yet not noticeably moderated by – a construction boom, exacerbating the scale of losses. As far as the local banks are concerned,2 it is worth recalling that their growth and their losses were entirely conventional and traditional in nature.