Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Over the past 48 hours since the two reports have been published, households have been asking if we are in some kind of time warp. Are we back in 2007 again when the RTE news and headlines splashed across the newspapers indicate that the price of houses in the capital city is increasing by €6,000 a month? Every analyst and economist worth their salt is attributing part of the blame for that increase on the help-to-buy scheme.

The Minister has repeatedly said that the help-to-buy scheme is about helping people to get their deposit. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, repeated that ad nauseamyesterday. The official figures the Minister provided to me indicate that 73% of the applicants approved so far had way in excess of the 10% regulatory deposit required. Only 27% of them actually drew down a loan to value of 90%. There is no guarantee that the 27% needed the help-to-buy incentive to make up the deposit. They may have just decided to go for a 90% loan to value to use money from a mortgage for other purposes as well.

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