AGENTS just cant catch a break when it comes to house prices. First, reality dawned that the ECB is planning to increase interest rates substantially this year, but there appeared to be some relief when the Government announced that mortgage interest relief for first-time buyers was being extended until the end of the year.

Worth up to €31,500 over a seven-year period, it would have been a bit of a boost to the market. But then along came the stress tests, and what looks like the State taking a majority stake in both Irish Life & Permanent and Bank of Ireland. Of course, this could, should have been predicted a year ago but the Fianna Fáil government was plagued by indecision and merely pushed out the inevitable.

All of that comes on top of a report from Knight Frank this week which found that Ireland had the biggest house price drop worldwide last year at 10.8 per cent. And that’s added to the double digit drops of the previous three years. So where to from here? Some would say that the Government should stay out of the market and let it stabilise. There is one Government intervention that would be welcome and that is for the relevant mininster to get on with the job of introducing the promised property price database that would at least bring some clarity to the market. The first 100 days are ticking by . . . .