Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

A soft landing is being encouraged by the continuing supply of houses to a market which continues to have strong fundamentals. Anecdotal evidence suggests the market is softening but we will not be able to ascertain until spring of next year whether interest rate increases are contributing to that situation. The important point is that we should not be predicting a hard landing when the Central Bank and all the evidence of continuing high income growth and low unemployment rates indicate otherwise. When people saw problems in the housing market across the water, it was against a background of rising unemployment and much higher interest rates. Taking nominal inflation into account, real interest rates are significantly lower at present.

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