Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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339. To ask the Minister for Finance the types of residential property sales that are included as cash purchases in figures released by the Central Bank; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26189/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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In its Quarterly Bulletin 3 of 2016, the Central Bank of Ireland published an article estimating the level of cash buyers in the Irish residential property sector since 2000 (link:.  I am advised by the Central Bank that this was a once-off research exercise to improve information on housing transactions not financed through bank mortgages. 

For the purposes of that article, cash sales are defined as all residential property transactions where there is no recourse to mortgage finance from an Irish resident bank.  This would include purchases 'downsizing' and using cash to re-purchase, private investors, domestic and international institutional investors (e.g. REITS) and some social and voluntary housing providers.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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340. To ask the Minister for Finance if non-mortgage purchases of residential property here exceeds the average across Europe; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26190/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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In terms of recent developments in Ireland, the share of non-mortgage purchases in total annual residential transactions increased from less than 20 per cent at the start of 2011 to close to 55 per cent at the end of 2013. The most recent data relates to the second quarter of 2016, when non-mortgage purchases accounted for approximately 50 per cent of residential property transactions.

As the Deputy is aware, the Central Bank has recently published relevant analysis on this subject and have found that the proportion of non-mortgage transactions in the Irish housing market is cyclical in nature, increasing when the volume of mortgage transactions is low and contracting during periods of expansionary credit.

There does not appear to be any data series available to directly compare the share of non-mortgage purchases in the Irish property market with a European average. However, data is available for the UK - a relevant comparator country - and recent analysis indicates that the proportion of non-mortgage transactions has followed a broadly upward trend since 2007, increasing from approximately 24 per cent to a rate of 36 per cent in the first quarter of 2016.