A leading Irish building company has insisted an increase in affordable housing will provide an improvement in the market over the next quarter of 2008.

Meeting last week for its annual general meeting, McInerney, said price incentives and an increase in mortgage interest relief has seen affordability improve notably, and believes the "price correction in the market has now taken place".

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From this, the company projects house sales will stabilise at previously high levels, but only when mortgage availability in the market and consumer sentiment improves.

UK figures suggest house sales are 17% down on last year, McInerney said a contributing factor to this downturn could be the longer completion times.

The building firm discussed the difficulty of forecasting the full year decline in completions per unit.

One sector, maintaining some relative success, is the affordable and social housing market, according to McInerney. The company plans to expand operations in this area of the industry.

The company reported unchanged share prices in the Dublin market, at €0.91.

(PR)