Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I noted the comments made about the Governor of the Central Bank's statement on mortgage deposits and loan to earnings ratios. We have mainly received reasonably negative comments about it from some of the other lending institutions. Representatives of Ulster Bank said to us this morning that 68% of the first-time buyer mortgages approved by the bank this year would have fallen outside the proposed loan to value ratios or loan to income criteria. They suggested, as their counterparts from Permanent TSB did, that a focus on affordability and repayment capacity would be more relevant than a focus on strict limits and criteria. My personal belief is these criteria have no real or theoretical basis and that they hark back to the lending of the 1970s and 1980s, as opposed to more modern day lending. Much of what has been suggested by the Governor of the Central Bank is an attempt to pre-empt another bubble in the property market. Do the delegates believe we are in or are approaching a property bubble?