The Government's new housing measures will inflate house prices and rents, according to the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute. At the institute's 2000 graduation ceremony, president Mr Eddie Barrett called on the Government immediately to reverse the measures introduced following Bacon Three.

"These measures will prove costly. Perhaps wide consultative political leadership, as opposed to populist knee-jerk politics, is too much to hope for, as we limp towards an election year with one blunder after another."