Mercman, you are some revisionist. This boom of the last 5 years was brought on by Irish speculation, Irish householders, small landlords, local banks, lax planning, political-developer links, uncontrolled immigration to keep demand high.....it had f#ck all to do with other countries except for easy credit.
And why, what where and who fueled this greed ? The Banks pumped money to those that offered no security. In fact the less that one had the better the chance they had of the Bank's lending. Who funded the speculation ?? Little point in blaming developers or Politicians as I have already mentioned. They themselves gave enough warnings.