Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the follow-up question. First, as I confirmed to Deputy O'Brien at a recent meeting of the joint committee, all approvals given to date by credit committees and local authorities will be honoured. There should be no hesitation or pause in facilitating the drawdown of those loans where an approval has been made by the credit committee. Of the €200 million provision, only €127 million has been drawn down. In fact, if we drill into the detail, only €85 million has actually been drawn down by the local authorities from the Housing Finance Agency. There is more than enough funding in the scheme at present to honour the approvals for drawdown.

The Deputy asked about allocations for this year. The money is available for drawdown and more money will be made available. Local authorities need not wait for their allocations for 2019. We will honour any approval given by a credit committee of a local authority. They can continue to do that. If we find examples of where that is not happening - there was one on the radio today - we get in touch with the local authority to ask why it is not happening.

I am very sorry for the confusion that is in some local authority areas. The confusion is not because of anything the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government or the Housing Finance Agency are doing. Where there are difficulties we will work to address them.

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