Mr. Brian Cowen:

I agree that a property bubble emerged during my time and that it was as a result of a number of factors which have been outlined. If you have ... let's be clear about this. In the late '90s, the total capacity of the building industry to produce houses in this country was 17,000 per year. Even at that stage, the demand was estimated at 28,000 per year. Capacity had to be ramped up for supply to meet demand. When you look at demand throughout the noughties, from ... during my time and before, if you look at house formation, you know, the number of people who were likely to set up home, take between 15 and 34 - 1.5 million people. You had people coming home to Ireland to take up good jobs who were looking for homes, who unfortunately had to leave Ireland before and unfortunately have had to leave ... some have had to leave again. We had ... we had immigrants ... after 2004, we had the highest rate of immigrants coming into the ... coming into Ireland, over any other EU country, proportionately. So, what I'm saying to you is, if you want to meet demand, you have to increase supply.