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

So that comes back to whether it was the first-time buyer or whether it was people trying to buy a home and trading up and trading down or whatever. And if I can bring up the next slide there. What we see in that slide is the ratio of new house prices to the average industrial wage and the ratio of average second hand prices to the average industrial wage. And we see it, they are the kind of more or less ... you can nearly put one on top of the other for both markets. In 1996, the purchasing range is in and around just over four times the national industrial wage for somebody trying to buy a home which would be in the Central Bank's sort of ratio levels, and likewise for the new market, it is just over 4%. And going into 2007, we are seeing ratios of 12 times or so the national industrial wage in trying to buy the average sort of house. In that regard, Mr. McCreevy, in reviewing your tenure as Minister for Finance and the property-related tax measures that you implemented or increased or elongated or put off by means of deferral, do you think that these actions benefitted one sector of society over the other and, if one, which?