The prosecution of the Quinns has reawakened nationwide anguish and finger pointing about the reasons for the cataclysmic collapse of the Irish economy which had sailed so high on speculativefever for nearly 15 years.
The real estate market, long considered to be a bubble even by some developers, is now the target of tough government measures intended to cool a speculativefever that has driven up prices dramatically in major cities.
But most economists and people in the mortgage business say the correction, when it does come, will be limited to certain areas--California, parts of Florida and elsewhere in the Southwest--where the speculativefever has been the most frenetic.