Ciarán Hancock

Hello, I'm Ciarán Hancock.

Welcome to Inside Business.

Some mixed news recently on the housing front, with price growth slowing, but rent soaring in Q1.

Sheriff Fitzgerald, Chief Executive Marian Finnegan and Irish Times economics correspondent, Eoin Burke-Kennedy, join me in a few minutes to discuss this.

In the second half of the show, Ian Curran of the Irish Times joins me in studio to discuss his trip to Toronto last week with 150 Irish business leaders, all part of the CEO retreat for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

But first to housing.

House price growth hit 6.5% in March, the slowest rate in two years, offering some chink of light to those hoping to buy.

For tenants, however, the news was grim.

Rents rose by 4.4% in Q1.

That's the highest quarterly rate increase since 2002.

while the number of eviction notices issued by landlords rose by 50% in the same period.

All that against the backdrop of new government rules around renting.

Joining me in studio to make sense of these data points is Marian Finnegan, CEO of Sherry Fitzgerald, the country's largest estate agent, and on the line by Eoin Burke-Kennedy of the Irish Times.

Eoin, I'm going to go to you first.

Maybe you can just take us through those headline numbers, both in terms of rents and house price growth.

Yeah, maybe this is where Marion Finnegan, Chief Executive of Sherry Fitzgerald, comes in.

Marion, thanks for joining us again.

What do you make of these?

What should we make of them?

Six and a half percent.