Wednesday 25th February 2015, Dublin.Green Party representative, Cllr Ciarán Cuffe, has welcomed today’s figuresfrom the Central Statistics Office (CSO) indicating that house prices fell in January 2015. The CSO statistics said that property prices fell by 1.4% nationwide in January, and by 1.9% in Dublin. Residential property prices in the capital are still 21.6% higher than this time 12 months ago, and 15.5% higher nationally.Cuffe said: “This halt in the trend towards unaffordable home prices is to be welcomed, and will give a sigh of relief to the many people looking for a home. Exorbitant growth rates in recent times have put both residential and rented property out of the reach of many people, and I hope that this is a start towards a cooler market with more affordable prices.“One hopes that this is partly a result of the recently introduced mortgage lending rules by the Central Bank. I supported those new regulations as I believed they would put some brakes on the runaway housing market, as well as prevent first time buyers from being overloaded with unsustainable mortgage debt.“The only long-term solution to the housing crisis, however, remains the large scale building of affordable and social housing. Only increased capacity will reduce pressure on rents and overall property prices, and this must be our key goal in the months and years ahead.”ENDS