Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and all of the Deputies for their contribution so far on the issue. For the record, I and my party campaigned in 2020 for the retention of the help-to-buy scheme. It was a commitment in our manifesto. There are new homes being built today which simply would not have been built if the help-to-buy scheme did not exist. I assume the logic of both Sinn Féin and the Labour Party is that if you get rid of the scheme, you will increase the supply of new homes. I assume they believe that the supply of new homes needs to increase. It needs to increase further, but I believe that the existence of the scheme is leading to the construction of more homes than would otherwise be taking place across our society.

I will deal with some of the specific points that have been made. The assertion regarding the increase in the cost of a new home completely ignores the reality of construction materials inflation, which has been at a record level in recent years as a result of the terrible war in Ukraine.

There should be an acknowledgement of that. Anybody who knows anything about construction or building homes will know that the cost of building a new home in Ireland has increased very significantly in recent times. We should also acknowledge that since the Mazars report was completed - I know we will discuss this issue in a while - very significant changes in monetary policy have resulted in interest rates increasing for many homeowners but also for prospective homeowners. This has made the prospect of securing a first home for many individuals and families more difficult than it was before. It is important that this point would be acknowledged.

We should also put the overall numbers in context. Last year, the proportion of successful help-to-buy claims versus total house transactions was approximately 11%.

We should also accept that for many people, the help-to-buy scheme does not give them €30,000. I have dealt with many individual cases in which, because of the amount of tax people have paid in recent years or because they have returned from abroad after emigrating and have only been here for the past one, two or three years, the amount they are entitled to is far less. We should not be saying it is €30,000 for everybody because it is not €30,000 for everybody. It depends on the level of income tax and deposit interest retention tax paid.

There should also be an acknowledgement of the change we are introducing around the interaction with the local authority affordable purchase scheme. I have had people in my office who, without this change, simply would not be able to buy the home, even though they have been successful in being allocated a home under an affordable housing scheme put forward by a local authority. There is no doubt about it that for many people the help-to-buy scheme means the difference between them being able to buy a home and not being able to buy a home.

This is not at the expense of the construction of social homes. We are providing over €5 billion in capital investment for 2024 through Exchequer funding, through the Land Development Agency, LDA, and through the Housing Finance Agency. If one looks at what we have done so far, one can see that 10,263 social homes were delivered last year. This is an increase of almost 12% on 2021. From a standing start, over 1,750 affordable homes were delivered in 2022. If one looks at the first home scheme, as of the end of the third quarter of this year, one can see we have had almost 2,600 approvals under this scheme.

In construction generally, a significant increase in new home commencements is continuing, with almost 24,000 homes commenced between January and September of this year. This is up 14% on last year. More than 22,400 homes have been built to the end of September, with the Housing for All target of 29,000 expected to be exceeded again this year. I believe we can point to progress. Do we need to do more? Absolutely, but if the suggestion is that the existence of the help-to-buy scheme is holding back supply, that is a logic I very much struggle to understand. I strongly believe the help-to-buy scheme is resulting in more homes being built. For many prospective homebuyers, it represents the difference between them being able to buy and not being able to do so. The idea that if we abolish it, in the absence of alternatives which I have not seen from either of the two parties opposite, it would increase private supply, is not a conclusion I would reach based on the evidence I have seen.