Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The meeting was about ensuring that the RTB was in touch with the Rape Crisis Centre and to develop the criteria for questions and how they might be formulated. The survey is ambitious work that the RTB is doing, and it will involve a large sample. I cannot recall the figure the Deputy seeks, although I believe I gave it to him at our previous meeting. We will publish the details of the survey in order that everyone will see how large it will be and what area it will cover, to try to have a deeper dive into what is happening and the experiences of people in the private rented sector today. There will be much information about it, but we focused on one specific aspect in the meeting earlier and did not talk about the wider survey.

On Rebuilding Ireland and bankruptcy, I cannot speak to a specific case. Nevertheless, we have recognised that people may have had difficulties in their past. They may have been in a relationship, for example, and might have had a home under that relationship and now be separated or divorced. We did not want to exclude people in those circumstances from being able to participate in the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. Likewise, if someone has gone through bankruptcy, he or she will be deemed to be a higher credit-worthy risk. He or she would not be excluded outright from being able to apply for a Rebuilding Ireland home loan but it would depend on the reasons for the bankruptcy and on whether he or she could meet the criteria for eligibility today, notwithstanding the fact that he or she will have been through bankruptcy. Such matters are decided by the credit committees and the Housing Agency. There are two or three levels of checks, depending on one's perspective and, ultimately, it is a decision for the local authority credit committee.

We made some changes to the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme this year, such as removing the variable rate. It had a higher element of risk but little uptake and, therefore, it was not a necessary product. We have also added better cost control measures with the local authorities for managing the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. We constantly examine actions we can take.

On the case the Deputy raised, without getting into the details of a specific case in a public forum, if he could provide them to me, I will have officials determine whether there is a gap in respect of the local authorities.