Mr. Vasileios Madouros:

I will start with international capital moving into housing but more broadly into property. We have seen a big increase in international capital in the past decade or so in the commercial property market, offices and retail spaces. We have also seen in recent years an increase in international capital in elements of the residential property market, especially in the context of apartments and build-to-rent properties. There are a couple of dimensions to this. Part of the analysis I mentioned earlier that we did on housing and housing supply a couple of weeks ago looked at some of the key factors that will determine housing supply in the future. One of those was related to the issue of financing. Fnancing is not the main issue but it is relevant because construction is highly dependent on financing. One of the points we made is that the diversity in financing we have seen is really important. Diversity domestically and globally is positive overall from a macro-financial perspective. Looking to the future, it will be important to maintain this diversity of financing.

I will make one last point on this. There is an element of this international capital because leverage was also mentioned. Some of this is actually pure equity capital, which is really helpful from a risk-sharing perspective. However, some of this capital is intermediated through property funds that are authorised here in Ireland. This occurs in both the commercial segment of the market and some elements of the residential market, but to a lesser extent. Because we want this form of financing to be resilient - so that it can ultimately serve its purpose in providing financing to the economy in good times and in bad - about two years ago we introduced measures to guard against leverage-related vulnerability by restricting the degree of leverage. This basically means that when adverse shocks hit, they will be less likely to amplify any stresses, which addresses the Deputy's earlier point. These are still being implemented.