Irish house prices rise at fastest annual pace in over a year

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish property prices rose at the fastest annual pace in over a year in August, the central statistics office said on Friday, after a 1.6 percent month-on-month rise put prices 7.2 percent higher than a year ago. Property prices began a sharp recovery in 2013 from a huge crash five years earlier and rose by as much as 20.4 percent year-on-year in 2014 before stabilising at an annual growth rate of around 4 to 5 percent during the year to July. Prices rose on the month in every region bar one, with Dublin up 1.5 percent and the rest of the country 1.8 percent higher. Prices nationally are still on average 33.7 percent below their 2007 peak at the height of the property bubble. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Catherine Evans)