Dr. Conor O'Toole:

I will come in on the calibration of the income limits in the scheme because there are a couple of issues to consider.

There are pros and cons to hard income limits. For example, there is always someone on the far side of the income limit who is likely to be just as needy as someone on the near side. Schemes like this are not without their costs. If we take a step back and examine the research that has been done over the past number of years, we will see that the affordability pressures are greatest at the lower end of the income distribution. It is likely that targeting instruments that help those areas with affordability pressures would be best. The Rebuilding Ireland home loan has a specific loan-to-income limit. When analysed, it clearly takes the part of the market that the commercial banks do not. In that context, we can see the importance of its calibration.

There are pros and cons to the introduction of any scheme and these need to be considered carefully in the context of the broader parameterisation of all other measures.