Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Let me expand on that with Professor Ahearne, in that the mortgage products that were there at the time, as he indicated to Deputy McGrath, were very much for the home purchaser, but those products were also available for investors, particularly in the buy-to-let sector. Earlier in his testimony, Professor Ahearne discussed how the traditional model of valuing residential property was through rental income. I think it is ten to 12 times the annual rental income that determines what the price of a house should be, and so forth. Given that in the buy-to-let sector there were100% mortgages and interest-only payments, and the rent was required to justify the repayments back to the banks, even though no capital was being paid back due to the interest-only payments, did that in any way distort the valuation process? People could afford the rent even though the landlord was not clearing any capital on the loan.