John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Returning to the local authority affordable purchase scheme, it is all first-hand feedback. I identified this issue prior to the budget in September. The officials must correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think there was any sort of robust discussion between the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Finance on the difficulties that were going to be experienced by the people with a 70% loan-to-value ratio where the help-to-buy scheme interacts with the equity available, notwithstanding that they are a small cohort. As the officials know, we have primary legislation that says equity up to 40% can be taken by a local authority in order to reduce the purchase price available and make it more affordable for people to get their foot on the ladder. The higher equity requirement is more of an issue in Dublin than Waterford, but is still an issue for a cohort of people.

From my calculations, I can see that the maximum equity that somebody in Waterford can avail of is about 22% if they are going to combine it with the help to buy scheme. That is about €65,000. If they were to get a higher equity of €75,000, to which they are entitled under the Affordable Housing Act, and we have considered that they need a higher equity in order to reduce the amount for them to purchase, they lose their help to buy. It is where that interaction comes in.

I appreciate the difficulty does not lie in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage; it lies in the Department of Finance. What I want to ensure is that there is that robust level of discussion happening, which I do not believe happened prior to the last budget. I think some papers went back and forth between both Departments but I do not really think this issue was grasped at the point it needed to be grasped in advance of the budget. We are now in April and we are nearly getting into a budgetary cycle. I want to make sure it is on the radar because as more affordable purchase properties become available, more and more people will be caught by this. Ms Timmons is obviously aware of this.