LAST week will be remembered as the one when Brian Cowen officially decreed the property boom at an end.

While standard indicators such as planning permissions have for some time been pointing to a slowdown, the finance minister went further in the Dail last Tuesday. "In terms of price developments, the latest data show that the rate of house-price inflation has slowed since the middle of last year. Moreover, these data show that on a month-on-month basis, prices have been more or less flat since October, " Cowen said. "Flat" is a nice substitute for 'over'.

The latest information on stamp duty yields also shows a new reality.

"Evidence for the property market suggests that stamp duty receipts, although still strong, will not continue to grow at the rate of recent years, " Cowen admitted last week. At the end of February, stamp duties for the year to date were up 22% year-on-year. But by 16 March, the year-on-year level was 16% ahead of the same time in 2006. Higher interest rates and uncertainty over the future of the tax itself have played a part in the marketplace. The top members of the European Central Bank will meet in Dublin early in May to agree another interest rate hike, most likely a rise of one quarter of one percent. The end of the general election campaign might restore some order about the future of stamp duty, but with FG promising to implement changes over three years, many potential buyers may just continue to play a game of wait-and-see in order to save on their tax bill. Of course, if the property market seriously stalls, all the fuss over stamp duty will die away naturally, with fewer people buying property, especially high-end houses, and resultantly fewer people hit by the costs of the tax.

When 'when' is not the real issue

GOOD of the Taoiseach to deflect the news agenda last Thursday onto the nonstory of when the general election will be called. His preference for a Thursday poll provoked a series of releases from a host of organisations with pleas for the poor students and calls for weekend voting. This sham issue plays nicely for Ahern and his colleagues.

The uncertainty unsettles the opposition. The distraction suits the government. A few weeks ago, I made the case for a fixed-term parliament. The recent messing over when the election will be called combined with Ahern's latest play-acting strengthens the case for locking a fixed date on which Dail elections take place every five years.

Would somebody in Leinster House not take up the cause?

THERE were glowing references in the Guardian newspaper last week for Steve Hilton, a senior adviser to British Conservative leader David Cameron (right). "Steve is a very, very bright guy, " one former senior Labour Party "gure said. It was all very different in 1992 when a 23-year-old Hilton, who worked for Saatchi & Saatchi in London, arrived in Dublin to help with the FF general election campaign.

Described by the Irish Times as an "old English Tory", the Oxford-educated Hilton oversaw a campaign which attacked Dick Spring's Labour as a 'tax and spend' party. The young executive found himself even further out of his depth on the campaign with Albert Reynolds in Bandon where he was confronted by angry farmers with questions about their headage payments. He would have learnt little at Oxford to have dealt with that scenario. In truth, Hilton was probably on a loser from the start, but FF shed 10 seats in the 1992 Dail election.

David Cameron can only hope for better results from his chief adviser.

Justice done, with unseemly haste

A LITTLE over a year ago, the Chief Justice John Murray stepped into the political arena with words of warning about how TDs and senators do their business. Murray said that Oireachtas members had "to understand that hastily prepared legislation, sometimes under pressure of unreal deadlines, can in the longer term cause more problems than it resolves".

Last week, the Oireachtas engaged in a variation of Murray's concern with hastily introduced legislation. Michael McDowell was correct when he told the Dail that the new Criminal Justice Bill was "a major piece of legislation". He was, however, disingenuous with his hope for a debate in which as many TDs as possible would contribute.

The legislation will be rushed into law with a minimum of scrutiny before the Easter recess.

"The lack of time allotted to properly debate the issues raised in this bill means gaps and lacunae will not be cleared up during the debate, " Jim O'Keeffe of Fine Gael predicted. The forthcoming committee stage, when amendments are introduced, will be interesting . . . a big row may be expected next week.