On the face of it, the Taoiseach was simply stating the obvious: anybody who put off buying last year in the hope that prices would fall would now be bitterly regretting their decision. The average Irish home now sells for just under �?�285,000. If you'd bought 12 months ago you could have saved yourself �?�30,000.

Thanks for the advice, Taoiseach. Pity you didn't tell us a year ago.

The bigger question is whether the head of government has any business pontificating on the fair value of any asset, be it property, oil or the price of cocoa beans.

When you hold the highest office in the land, you should pick your words carefully, especially when they touch on financial decisions that will have enormous consequences for people's lives.

Yet Bertie's remarks seemed almost off the cuff: because property prices surged ahead last year, there's every reason to expect more of the same in the years to come; ignore the doomsayers and their predictions of an imminent crash; don't dawdle any longer if you want to secure your place on the property ladder.

Perhaps the Taoiseach doubts the tried and tested maxim that past performance is no guide to future results. If so, he might like to share a few stock tips with the electorate, especially those trying to scrape together a deposit for a home of their own.

The Iseq has enjoyed a great run, doubling in value over the past three years.

Taking Bertie's reasoning to its logical conclusion, this is all the evidence we need to believe that the bull market will run and run. Financials or food stocks, Taoiseach? AIB or Kerry? Does Bertie believe Elan is worth a punt now that its Tysabri wonder drug is a step closer to being back on the shelves?

Bertie's willingness to barge into a debate where he doesn't belong has a lot more to do with politics than with the economics of the housing market. Inadequate childcare, crumbling infrastructure and a health service on the brink of collapse might cost him the next election. A house price crash definitely would, dissolving the feel-good factor on which Bertie is pinning his hopes.

The curious aspect of the Taoiseach's remarks was the way he conjured up a phantom army of pessimists who are leading house-hunters astray with ill-founded predictions of doom to come.

Certainly, international commentators, from the International Monetary Fund to the Economist magazine, have questioned the everwidening gap between house prices and wages. But it is easy to write them off for a perceived failure to understand the unique circumstances propping up property values in Ireland.

If pressed, Bertie would find it a lot more difficult to unmask any Cassandras closer to home. Unless you count Brian Cowen who, responding to a rush of ?end is nigh' hype in some newspapers midweek, offered a note of caution to house buyers.

But even the most pessimistic of professional economists talk of a soft landing rather than a crash, a belief no doubt influenced by the fact that most of their wages are paid by the mortgages being shovelled out the door by their colleagues down the corridor.