The once dynamic Irish economy now faces plummeting property prices and rising unemployment. It was a bitterly cold morning back in January when thousands of Dell workers gathered in Raheen, County Limerick, Ireland, to hear their fate. They knew the news would be bad - there had been rumours of closure for almost two years - but they did not know how bad. It was devastating: 1,900 of the 3,000 workers would lose their jobs, Dell announced, because it was moving its production facility to Lodz in Poland. It was the start of one of the grimmest weeks the Irish economy has ever endured.