Yet another report this week about the growing problem of affordability and housing. The Dresdner Kleinwort Benson survey made pretty grim reading. After the Netherlands, the Republic is the most expensive state in Europe in which to buy a home, with a typical urban home costing 18.2 times average disposable earnings. Only 10 years ago, the figure here was 11.3 times average annual disposable income and that disposable income figure itself has been rising. To give you some comparison, the cost of housing in the euro zone as a whole fell to 14.7 times average disposable income from 15.6 a decade ago and that includes such cheap housing areas as London, Paris and Rome. In the US, the relevant multiples are 8.3 in 1999 and 9.7 in 1989.

Granted the concentration of population and therefore housing demand in the greater Dublin area may somewhat skew the figures, but that does not obviate the dangers currently present in the domestic housing market.

It also makes a nonsense of claims by most lenders that they are observing Central Bank guidelines on mortgage lending, albeit grudgingly. Unless some sense enters the equation with regard to lending limits, supply of land, density and other areas, we are heading for a bust as increasingly resentful potential first-time buyers are locked out of the market.