Ms Clare Costello:

Certainly. Mortgage interest tax relief, as the Deputy will be aware, is an issue that has come to the fore due to the ten interest rate increases, I think, over the past 14 months. As with any measure for the budget, we had ongoing discussions with the Minister in respect of the measure. Due to the introduction of the measure, which is somewhat contrary to monetary policy and to the efforts of the ECB to try to dampen inflation, we looked at various ways to ensure that any measure that is to be introduced is timely, targeted and time-bound. Throughout recent months, we had ongoing deliberations with the Minister looking at various ways to design the tax relief.

Then, as I mentioned earlier to Deputy Conway-Walsh, we looked at the data from the Central Bank. That was key to the formation of the policy. We got significant data from the bank with respect to the numbers of accounts and the types of accounts within various income bands. We also got assistance from the Central Bank with the number of accounts that experienced an interest rate increase over the year. Ultimately, to arrive at our cost for the scheme, the bank estimated that there were 208,000 accounts between the thresholds that were set, between the €80,000 and the €500,000. The bank looked at the increase in the interest bill for those 208,000 accounts for the relevant period, which was approximately €676 million. Then applying the relief of 20% would amount to a cost of about €135 million. There is a cap on the relief, so we then depressed the cost a little to €125 million. It was through those ongoing negotiations and discussions between us, the bank and the Minister that we arrived at the measure and the cost of €125 million.