The cooling Celtic Tiger economy, more stringent credit terms from banks and a static property market are all revealing the failures in the Irish legal system when it comes to resolving commercial disputes. This in turn is giving rise to huge uncertainty in the commercial sector. While there has been improvement from the delays of up to three years from cases being set down to the hearing date, there are still problems for commercial matters in the jurisdiction of E38,000-E1m (£30,000-£783,000). This has led to difficulties for companies and has exacerbated the cooling of the economy and the availability of cash for trading companies.
One feature of commercial activity in Ireland which has assisted the growth in the Irish economy has been the willingness of banks and other lending institutions to secure lending against property. To illustrate this, the amount of activity carried out by Irish developers throughout Europe which was allowed and facilitated by domestic banks in circumstances where there was no additional security overseas is indicative of sophisticated commercial property lending in terms of deal structuring and credit availability.
