Mr. Tim Vaughan:

There was much flux among all commentators throughout the 2000s. The committee has heard from Professor Alan Ahearne. Although he was raising flags in 2005, in July 2007, after there had been many high-profile warnings, he wrote:

Of course, Ireland's housing market at the moment is not crashing - it is correcting gradually downward. That is good news. The second piece of good news is that in the experiences of other rich countries, housing busts rarely lead to serious problems for banks.

There has been much diversity and many changes of opinion over time.