Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a modest initiative. A person with savings of €40,000 and earning 1% interest will pay DIRT amounting to about €170. Therefore, over four years he or will get less than €650 back. That will not have a huge impact in terms of the overall mortgage cost. There are a couple of issues I want clarified. I welcome the fact that self-builds are included. It is an issue I have raised on previous Finance Bills which was completed ignored by Government. Amendment No. 48 refers to "the period of 48 months ending on the relevant completion date". A person who has been involved in a self-build would normally put their own personal money up front first, instead of drawing down their mortgage. If one has €40,000 in one's account to assist with the purchase of the house and one gets a mortgage of €160,000 for a self-build costing €200,000, if it was me I would pay the €40,000 as soon as possible in the build as one receives only 1% interest, whereas if one is drawing down the mortgage one triggers automatically payment of 5%. That would be the normal trend in terms of self-build where it is directly built by oneself. Where one employs a contractor to do this work it would be a different scenario, usually the contractor would seek payment at the end of the build or may agree stage payments. The principle remains where there are stage payments that one tends to use one's cash first because it makes financial sense, therefore the completion date could be an issue. I do not know how to rectify it because there has to be a date from which to work back.

The other issue on which I seek clarification is in amendment No. 48 which defines "relevant savings" as not exceeding 20% of the amount of the consideration paid in respect of the relevant purchase for the first-time purchaser. I will use my own scenario as a first-time buyer. If my wife and I were both first-time buyers, what consideration would we be paid? There is no definition of "consideration paid". Does the "consideration paid" mean half in the case of a joint mortgage? We take out a joint mortgage where one is individually and jointly held liable but when that money is transferred is it 50% of the completion value? There is no definition as to what that actually means and how that would apply. It is left open to the possibility that one could avail of this twice.