Mortgage lending rose by 73 percent in the first three months of this year to €983m as first-times buyers continued to dominate the market. 

These figures do not fully measure the impact of tougher lending requirements introduced by the Central Bank which came into effect on February 11th.

This graph presents the trend in the volume of mortgage approvals and mortgage draw downs, it shows that the ratio of draw downs to approvals for property-purchase mortgages topped 80 percent for the first time since the third quarter of 2013.

The value and volume of mortgage lending during the quarter fell when compared to the last quarter in 2014.

5,618 new mortgages worth €983m were drawn down, this was 64 percent higher than the corresponding quarter in 2014 - but it was down by 26 percent when compared to the final quarter of last year.

At the height of the Celtic Tiger 7,919 loans worth almost €8bn were drawn down in the first quarter of 2007.