Central Bank lending regulations may have had a cooling impact on the housing market, but it seems the upper end is thriving.

Latest Knight Frank research shows that the price of Dublin's prime residential property – the top 5 per cent of the market – grew by 0.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2016, ranking Dublin as the fastest growing city in Europe over the period.

Dublin now sits in 13th position globally in Knight Frank’s Prime Global Cities index in terms of annual growth, up eight places in the first quarter of the year, having out-performed cities such as Singapore (0.2 per cent) and New York (0.1 per cent) in the second quarter.

Analysis of the property price register showed an increase of 14 per cent in the number of €1 million-plus transactions in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2015.