Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

"No" is the straight answer to that. It is important to put the help-to-buy scheme in context. In the last quarter of last year 3,005 purchases were made by first-time buyers. Of these, only 297, fewer than 10%, were new homes. Given the fact that first-time buyers make up only approximately 25% of the market this means we are speaking about 2.5% of purchases. I do not accept the idea this is driving up house prices.

The whole point of the help-to-buy scheme is this time last year builders were simply not building homes for first-time buyers because they knew first-time buyers did not have the capacity to put together a deposit, which is something to which the Deputy referred at the start of her contribution. Houses were expensive and the obligations on first-time buyers to put together deposits made it impossible for most of them to aspire to buy a home. The Central Bank and the Government came to the same conclusion because of the same evidence, that actually we needed to help first-time buyers to get a deposit together while at the same time limiting the amount of money a first-time buyer could borrow, linked to income. The net effect of the help-to-buy scheme has been to change the dynamics in the market and we are now seeing a lot more starter homes being built. Unfortunately, this takes time to impact positively on the market in terms of increased supply, but if we look at commencements, planning permissions and activity in the sector we are seeing significant increases.

See this speech in context