'IRELAND AFTER NAMA'

'IRELAND AFTER NAMA'

Researchers at NIRSA and geographers from around Ireland, including from NUI Maynooth's geography department, met on Monday November 23rd to discuss 'Ireland after NAMA'. NAMA, the National Asset Management Agency, is part of the Irish government's response to the country's economic crisis. It will take ownership of billions of Euros worth of so-called 'toxic assets' - leftovers from the property boom - and will manage and (hopefully successfully) dispense of them over the next ten years. Geographers need to pay attention to this shift because NAMA is likely to have numerous, far-reaching spatial consequences. As such, the event was a call to action for the community of urban, rural, economic, social, cultural, and political geographers in Ireland. One immediate outcome is a new blog, which can be accessed at: http://irelandafternama.wordpress.com/ - but there is likely to be much to come from this collaboration.