Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his steadfast approach to these matters in recent years. I know he is strongly supportive of the European Union. He equally appreciates that some decisions need to be taken at a national level and we need to protect our right to do so. The Deputy is, of course, correct about the operation of the Single Market. However, national regulators still determine how much capital individual national banks hold, which in turn plays a role in the setting of interest rates in the different jurisdictions. Other institutions and forces are involved in the setting of interest rates.

I go back to the point I made to the Deputy a moment ago. At the end of 2021, the average mortgage rate in the eurozone was 1.29%.

In July it went to 2.08%, so it went up. Across the same period, it has gone from 1.4% at the end of 2021 in Ireland to now 0.55%. That is the narrowing of the differential.

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