Ms Katherine Licken:

The Gaeltacht housing loans refers to a scheme which goes back to 1929 and ran up to 1979 under the Housing (Gaeltacht) Act 1929. There are 30 remaining individual loans outstanding, none of which exceeds €6,600 in value. Up to 12,500 loans were paid out from 1930 to 2000. The value of the loans varied from €12.70, or £10, in the early 1930s to €5,100 in 2000. The value of the loan could not exceed the value of the grant. The maximum value of loans available to householders in Gaeltacht islands was €7,600. The repayment period varied from five to 30 years.