The month-on-month increase came after the first contraction for 10 months in January, according to the latest CSO figures.
Property prices in Dublin were also on the rise again, climbing 1.1% in March to stand 22.8% higher than a year ago.
Dublin house prices rose by 1% in March while Dublin apartment prices increased by 2.1%.
However, the CSO warns the figures for apartments are based on low volumes of observed transactions and consequently suffer from greater volatility than other sectors.
Outside of Dublin, residential property prices rose by 0.7% in March. Prices were up 10.7% compared with March 2014.
At national level, residential property prices were 38.2% lower than their peak level in 2007. Dublin house prices were 36.9% lower than their peak, Dublin apartment prices were 42.2% lower, and Dublin residential property prices overall were 38.7% lower than their highest level.
Outside of Dublin, residential property prices were 41.5% lower than their highest level in 2007.
According to John McCartney, director of research at Savills, the return of faster house price growth may reflect a delayed market reaction to the Central Bank’s new mortgage lending rules.
“Last October the Bank announced plans to make mortgage lending more restrictive.
“However, it said that people with loan offers in place prior to the regulations becoming law would still be able to borrow under the old rules.
“This led to a stampede for loan approvals in the closing months of last year. With these offers generally lasting for six months, time is running out for buyers with pre-existing approvals to borrow under the old regime. It may be that demand from these motivated buyers is behind the rebound in price growth seen in today’s figures,” he added.
However, McCartney said this would be a temporary phenomenon and that the trend of moderating prices growth should reassert itself later in the year.
However, in global terms, Irish house prices are still outpacing growth elsewhere.
They increased 15 times more than the eurozone average in the final quarter of last year when compared to the corresponding period in 2013.
That trend is set to continue, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics body.
While the rate of growth slowed towards the end of 2014, Ireland had the highest quarterly increase in the EU at a national average of 16.5% compared to the same period last year.