Permanent tsb today announced that the slow down of growth in house prices in Ireland could have been aided by the recent rise in interest rates by the European Central Bank. This month house prices only increased by 1%, the third consecutive month when the rate of growth has decreased.

In a statement Permanent TSB said that "monthly growth rates across all market sectors in August are the same or lower than the growth rates experienced in the previous month.'

The rate of growth this year has still been higher than expected, nationally prices have increased by 10.2% in the first eight months of the year, in 2005 the increase was 4.4% for the same period.

Niall O'Grady, Head of Marketing at permanent tsb said in a statement: There is a clear trend of slowing price growth in the Irish housing market, following the recent series of ECB rate increases.

"While over the course of this year we have seen some market sectors experiencing a lower growth rate than in previous months, August is the first month this year where all market sectors experienced the same or a reduced monthly growth rate.

"Nationally the year on year growth rate, though still high, has remained unchanged from the July figure, something that has not happened since this time last year. All this points to the heat being taken out the market and house price growth reaching the top of the curve.'