Like a bicycle in a traffic jam, Ireland’s economy has defied every obstacle the world economy has thrown at it since the mid-1980s. In every year since 1993, gross domestic product grew by 4 per cent or more.

But to many observers the lucky country now seems headed for a fall. With a quarter of its economy dependant on its property market, things look grim. But are they? In the short-term, the answer is yes. From just under 5 per cent last year, Ireland’s economy will grow by little more than 2 per cent next year. A three-year-old housing bubble is bursting, a process likely to take another nine months. More worrying is the fact that Ireland’s construction industry employs around 270,000 or 13 per cent of Ireland’s labour force. It is a particularly unlucky 13: the European Union average construction employment share is 7 per cent. With Ireland’s property boom subsiding, around 100,000 people could, in theory, lose their jobs. That is 5 per cent of the Republic’s 2m-strong labour force.