Irish house prices rose by 8.9% between Autumn 2014 and Autumn last year.

The Eurostat findings put Ireland third highest in the league table of European property price rises for the third quarter of 2015.

Latest figures show that only Austria (up 9.3%) and Sweden (up 13.7%) had house prices rising faster in the same period.

While Irish price rises slowed considerably in in the earlier part of the year, there was a surge in the third quarter - up 4.5 % compared to the second quarter.

This was the second highest quarter-on-quarter increase in the EU.

But Eurostat says the rate of increase in Irish house prices is down on the previous 12 months, when they went up by 16.3%.

House prices during the period actually fell in Latvia (down 7.6%) Croatia (3%), Italy (2.3%) and France (1.2%).

In the EU overall, Autumn 2015 house prices were up by 2.3% in the Euro area and by 3.1% in the EU compared with the same period in 2014.