Professor Alan Ahearne:

It is problematic that Dublin house prices are rising so rapidly because it is pricing lots of people out of the housing market. That is the problem. Consistent with the evidence I proffered earlier, one really gets worried about housing booms when they are associated with credit booms. So far we have not seen a credit boom accompanying the recent increase in house prices, but that does not mean that it would not morph into that. It may well morph into that and that is why it was very important for the Central Bank to introduce the loan-to-value rules that it did. That will help to keep people safer.