Professor Philip Lane:

It is fair to say that not only in Ireland but across Europe there is a recognition that the level of analysis of commercial real estate does lag behind the residential market. A basic issue is that every office block is different, every shopping centre is different, so the dataset is less advanced. We and authorities across Europe are doing work now to try to improve that. It is very important to say in the Irish context that in recent years, much of the funding for what we see around Dublin is not coming from credit but from equity. That is a fundamental difference. It still matters quite a lot because if there is a reversal in that market it means that the collateral values of the banks' existing loans will alter. It is fundamentally different when there is a lot of equity funding compared to debt funding.