Property boom returns to Ireland four years after crash

Property prices in Ireland are rising at a higher rate than anywhere else in the EU just four years after a housing market crash pushed the country into bankruptcy.

Prices rose by 15 percent in the 12 months up to September 2014, more than six times the EU average, according to the latest figures from Eurostat i.

The news comes after Ireland was forced into requesting a Є78 billion EU bailout in 2010 when its construction sector, which had fuelled a decade of unprecedented economic growth, crashed and brought down some of its biggest banks after the Irish government realised that it could not afford to meet its promise to guarantee their entire liabilities.

Real estate prices are now worth around 75 percent of their 2007 levels, after having halved between 2007 and 2012.

Elsewhere in the EU, the three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - as well as Sweden and the UK, all saw a spike in prices of more than 10 percent.

A recovering property market is usually a positive sign that people are regaining confidence in their economic prospects.

However, the European Commission has warned the UK government, and several others, to increase property taxes in a bid to cool down its housing market amid fears of a new bubble.

Other EU crisis countries also show signs the market has bottomed out.

Spanish property values increased fractionally by 0.3 percent having plunged by 5 percent in 2013 and 13 percent in 2012 when its banks received around €40 billion in emergency EU funding.

Spain has also over-invested in the construction sector.

Meanwhile, fellow bailout recipient Portugal saw a 4.9 percent price increase.

At the other end of the scale, Slovenia and Italy were among seven EU countries to see a fall in prices, seeing decreases of 5.4 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively - the largest across the bloc.

France and Finland, traditionally wealthy countries now confronting the prospect of several years of economic stagnation, recorded price falls of 1.2 percent and 0.3 percent.