Professor Patrick Honohan:

I am not keen on kicking to touch for a while. I am not accusing the Deputy of falling into that trap, but it is something people in the public service do a great deal. They tend to say, "There could be some drawbacks, so let us not do anything and think about it for months and months." We must do something about this issue; we must put something in place for the long term. If we do not do it now, we will never do it.

The Deputy says people are panicking. That must be put into proportion. The number of loans of more than 80% to first time buyers in 2013, the year for which I have data, is approximately 2,800. That is the number of loans that would have been affected if it had been in place earlier. It is not as if hundreds of thousands of people are affected. I am not saying it is not happening, but it is not as if the banks were giving lots of such loans. They were not giving loans, which is the reason this is a good time to introduce this measure because it is in a situation where it affects a relatively small number of people.