Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the major strides the Minister has made to date in the provision of housing. It remains the biggest challenge facing the country. Now more than ever, I am reassured and convinced that we will finally get to grips with this crisis with this Minister at the helm. I raise the issue of index-shared ownership loans. In the pre-2003 version of the shared ownership scheme, the equity component was linked with the consumer price index, CPI. Longford County Council has 21 of these pre-2003 shared ownership loans active. Unfortunately, the challenge and difficulty are that the bearer of each loan entered the agreement on the basis that it was a straight shared ownership mortgage and the expectation was that the repayments were paying down the mortgage costs in their entirety. For example, one couple who have worked assiduously throughout their working lives to pay off their mortgage were recently shocked to learn that they still owe €24,000 on the loan as a result of the equity component. In a second case, an owner who has been in his property since 1992 is anxious to put his affairs in order as he nears retirement age. He, too, was shocked to learn that he still has to pay off as much as €96,000 on his property, especially as he was paying €90 a week in rent and what he assumed was his €264 mortgage every month. That rounds up to a total monthly payment of €654, a not insignificant sum. He has now learned he was not paying down the full mortgage amount.

All of the 21 householders in question went into this scheme in the earnest expectation that they would one day own their own homes outright. Many of them are now at an age where it will simply not be practical to seek a mortgage to address the equity component of the agreement. In most instances, banks will probably not consider them for funding as there is already a loan in place on the house. I ask the Minister to engage with the Department and undertake an earnest review of this matter. These are honest, decent and hard-working people who have paid their bills, rent and loans, all in the expectation of one day owning their own homes. It is hard not to argue with their contention that it seems that a sneaky little piece of small print now stands in the way of that dream coming true. That is simply not fair.

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