ONE MORE THING:THE CENTRAL Bank produced interesting statistics yesterday showing just how much equity owners pulled out of properties during the boom years and how equity releases have dried up since then.

Unlocking equity was all the rage when people didn’t expect residential property prices to do anything other than continue soaring.

At the peak of the boom from 2005 to 2006 €5.5 billion of top-up mortgages were borrowed a year.

Withdrawing equity in houses accounted for a third of loans by number and 15 per cent by value. Since then top-ups have – like the market and the value of equity in properties – crashed, falling to just €195 million in 2011.

Mortgage lending peaked at €39.7 billion in 2006, according to Irish Banking Federation and PricewaterhouseCoopers statistics, and has plummeted since then, to €2.5 billion last year.

Younger customers borrowed more in terms of number but not terms of the amount; for those under the age of 39 the average sum borrowed on a household equity release was €50,000 between 2005 and 2011 compared with €63,000 for borrowers aged 40 years and above.

More than 90 per cent of the value of equity borrowed between 2000 and 2011 was reinvested in property, reflecting the circular nature of the real estate boom.

Examining 52,000 loans from one unnamed bank, the Central Bank found that two-thirds of the customers borrowed loans for home improvement purposes.

Investing in other property accounted for 15 per cent of top-up mortgages and holiday homes 11 per cent of loans, averaging at more than €120,000 in 2008.

The Central Bank found, unsurprisingly, that there were high levels of top-up mortgages at the same time as the boom in consumer spending on luxury goods such as cars and the construction of new houses.

What the Central Bank doesn’t examine is the effect of heavy borrowing on the borrowers’ ability to meet those debts and pay for the excesses of the boom years.