Professor Philip Lane:

We are looking and evaluating the data. A relatively short number of months is not going to be enough. We cannot be intervening every few months. We have pre-committed that every year, in November, we will make our net analysis. Intervening more frequently than an annual basis would be too frequent. In the course of this year, we will be making the assessment if we think there is a destabilising spiral. As I indicated earlier on, there are self-correcting features. It cannot be the case that when we have a mortgage rule of 3.5 times income that prices can be detached from incomes. I must emphasise this is not about affordability. What is happening now is that it is only people on relatively good incomes who can buy a house. It is not a statement to say that the average house price will connect to the average income level. The mortgage market is only one slice of all of the issues the political system is debating such as affordability and ways for people to achieve a home. At least through the end of 2016, we have seen mortgages have not gone above the 3.5 times income level. It essentially means people on relatively good incomes are able to buy houses, especially in Dublin.