Ms Sarah Shovlin:

It costs €500 to get onto the scheme. To the members, €500 is probably nothing but to many people at home it is a lot of money. They are already going to the credit unions or somewhere else to get the €500. Under the new scheme, they then have to get a builder to produce a builder's report. Is that free? Probably not. Is a builder going to wait six months to get paid? Definitely not. Homeowners then have to apply for planning permission to have their houses demolished. That costs more money. They also have to get planning permission for the rebuild, even if it is the exact same house. That costs more money and an architect has to be paid. I could easily see a homeowner having a bill of €5,000 within three to six months of trying to work with the new scheme. How does anybody fund that if the banks are not an option?

We keep coming back to the point that, at the end of the day, these are people's homes but they are also the banks' assets. It is in the interest of the banks that this scheme works. We know it is not 100%. As Ms McDade said, grants are capped at €420,000. Engineers' fees and the cost of storage and accommodation must come out of that. The Government is very good at saying it is providing another grant for accommodation. That comes off the €420,000 so before participants start, they are down to having €380,000 to build a house. In my case, I have made my house smaller. I was right out of the starting blocks in 2020. In 2021, I dashed ahead, trying to get things done. I asked the architect to make the house smaller so that I might have a chance to get it finished. The new scheme does not allow for penalty-free downsizing. For members who do know what that means, if my house is 250 sq. m and I do not have as many kids as I thought I would, or whatever the case may be, and decide to rebuild a 230 sq. m house, the grant is payable on what I rebuild. The Government says the scheme is like for like. That is not like for like. Like for like is paying me the grant for the house that I worked hard to get and build. I will use that money to finish my house. I will not be here crying at the committee, with my bank or with everybody else because I cannot make this work. I do not know how many times we need to say it, but it is not working.