Estate Agents: One of Ireland's leading commercial property estate agents, GVA Donal O Buachalla, celebrated 50 years in business with clients and staff at a lunch in Dublin last Friday. The Tánaiste, Ms Mary Harney, was the guest of honour.

When the business was set up in 1954, the young Donal O Buachalla valued a 302 sq m (3,250 sq ft) Georgian house in Merrion Square at just over £6,000. Today that property is worth €2.25 million. Another Merrion Square building with 464 sq m (5,000 sq ft) had a valuation of £13,000 in the mid 1950s. Today's valuation stands at around the €4 million mark.

In other ways Ireland was a different place 50 years ago. Back then, driving in rush hour traffic from Donnybrook to O Buachalla's offices opposite the Dáil on Merrion Square took just eight minutes whereas today it can take anything up to 45 minutes.

The average industrial wage in today's money was €7.10 which, adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent of €142 per week compared to the 2004 average of €512 per week.

The gathering was reminded that official unemployment in 1954 was even lower than it is today at just 2 per cent, but that was an environment before the welfare state, where Ireland was seeing up to 40,000 people a year leaving the country in search of work. A table d'hôte dinner in the Shelbourne Hotel then cost 18 shillings and 6 pence, about €1.18 in today's money.

"Strangely enough, one of the few things that is similar today to how it was in 1954 is interests rates which is very important for our business," according to Con Cronin, managing director of GVA Donal O Buachalla.

The last historic low for interest rates of 3 per cent was reached in 1954. The current low interest rate of 2 per cent, combined with inflation which is expected to slightly exceed its target over the next year, essentially means that investors have very little to gain, in nominal terms, from leaving their money in the bank, he said. "So commercial property's long term performance track record is capturing investor attention, which is good news for us."

The firm became part of GVA Worldwide, a global alliance of property advisors, nine years ago.