As you probably know, there are many domain extensions out there beyond .com, .org and .net. There’s one for every country as well (.tv, in case you’re interested, makes a bunch of coin for the tiny, shrinking island nation of Tuvalu).
Joe reveals some surprising details about the administration of, .ie, Ireland’s extension:
I recently gave a dig out to somebody by registering a .ie domain for them. Total time from initial application to finally getting the domain up and running (e.g. getting the IEDR to update the nameservers) was 40 days!! Even I can’t believe it when I count it up.
Even if I generously lop of ten days to allow for some delays on my part in responding, this really is atrocious, and we pay a premium price of €95.59 for this service.
For those keeping track back in Canada, that’s CAN $133.65 per year. Or more than ten times what it costs to register a (frankly, much more valuable) .com, .net or .org domain name. Also, you can register any of those domain names instantly, instead of taking a month.
Ireland has done so many things right to support technological innovation. Occasionally, though, they get something horribly wrong. I smell a cash grab.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I am an Irish web developer, and I only ever buy .com/.net/.org domain names for my projects due to the ridiculous requirements and cost associated with .ie domains. If this is a cash grab it is ineffective, as the barriers to entry are enough to put most people off. From what I can see it is only larger businesses that are using .ie domains, for individuals they do not make any sense.