Growth in lending to Ireland's private sector was the weakest in four years in November, with Ireland's cooling property market knocking growth in loans to homebuyers to its lowest level since 1996.

Private sector credit growth fell to an annual rate of 17.1 per cent last month which compared with 18.5 per cent in October and was the weakest rate of expansion since October 2003, the Central Bank said today.

November's level was well below a peak of 30.3 per cent hit in June last year and follows a series of declines triggered by an end to Ireland's decade-long property boom during which house prices quadrupled.

Total public sector credit rose by €6 billion last month, bringing the outstanding level to €372.7 billion.

"But €2.5 billion of the monthly change was accounted for by lending to non-bank IFSC companies which is generally not related to activity in the domestic economy," the Central Bank said.

Residential mortgage lending growth also slowed, dropping to 14.2 per cent year-on-year, from 15.1 in October, and to its lowest level since March 1996.

The total amount of outstanding mortgage lending increased by €1.3 billion on the month to stand at €138.5 billion, bringing the average monthly increase so far this year to €1.4 billion.

"(This was) well below the average monthly increase of €2 billion over the same period in 2006," the bank said.

The growth rate of non-mortgage credit slipped to 21.6 per cent from 23.4 per cent in October while the annual pace of growth in outstanding credit card debt fell to 11.1 per cent from 11.5.

Funds provided by the bank as part of the European Central Bank's monetary policy operations rose by €8.7 billion to €32.5 billion with longer-term refinancing operations accounting for most of the increase.

The bank said after a general easing during October, market interest rates rose in November across most maturities. "Tensions in the euro money market about funding over the year-end period caused a sharp move in the one-month rate at the end of November, which was 66 basis points higher than at the end of the previous month," it said. "The three-month rate rose by 21 basis points in November."

Credit institutions in Ireland accounted for €229.7 billion of the euro area's broad money supply (M3) in November, a monthly increase of €111 million.

"The annual rate of increase fell by a percentage point to 15.3 per cent in November, the lowest rate in three years," the bank said.