What better antidote to the wet weather last weekend than a spin around yet another international property show, this time at the RDS. It seems the Irish have developed a voracious interest in overseas property. The majority of the stands were offering property in Spain, the Canaries and Florida but French houses and apartments were also for sale. It was hard to get close to Jill Kennedy, a Dublin-based agent specialising in Marbella property. She estimates that up to 70 per cent of the people she talked to were "serious buyers". One viewer said he had been thinking about buying an apartment in Dublin but for the same budget - £150,000 - he was now considering buying two in Spain. Jill Kennedy has newly built two-bedroom two-bathroom units in an upmarket development near the sea and with swimming pools starting at £75,000.

At the stand of French property specialists Conseil Patrimoine, apartments on the Cote d'Azur were being offered for as little as £56,000 while refurbished pieda-terres in Paris started at around £100,000. This stand attracted a steady stream of well-heeled browsers many of them seeking apartments in Paris for personal use, according to director Eric Groux. There were investors too, he said. "One person here today was looking for up to 20 apartments."