Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I did a paper a couple of years ago in terms of Ireland being for sale tax-free, which was looking at commercial real estate, fund structures and the tax structure in relation to funds and why we are seeing so many of them move in. I was not aware of the 35% figure, so that is obviously an increase in terms of where we have been. The idea that over one third of commercial real estate right across the State is held by funds should ring alarm bells, because a lot of this is out of our control. The work the Central Bank has done and the work I have done shows that there is an issue in certain funds in terms of leverage and that we would be susceptible to a shock. The concern I have - and I have made the point - is that I believe there is bubble in commercial property. Is the Central Bank aware of any trend of disposal of commercial property or an increase of disposal of commercial property in recent times that are raising any concerns, which would indicate maybe that funds are withdrawing from the market? Obviously, if there was a large-scale fire sale of assets, that would have an impact on property prices and also would spill over into residential and so forth.