The property slump in Ireland may be turning with Brian Lenihan, Ireland’s finance minister, claiming that residential property prices are bottoming out.

When Lenihan was quizzed by a parliamentary committee in Dublin, he said: ‘We are very near it on the basis of the figures that we now have about the yield from property. The yield is at an all-time high relative to the assets which is a clear, objective economic indicator that we are approaching the trough.’

However, a report by Morgan Kelly, University College Dublin’s economist, suggest that property values may only recover to less than half of their peak values and remain there for a decade or longer. Kelly had predicted in 2007 that property prices were set to fall by up to -20% and had been criticised for having such pessimistic views but the slump proved him correct.