Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned about this. It reminds me of the 1980s when there was a long, drawn-out process for getting loans. We are back to square one. We are in a world where the market is moving very fast and we must respond accordingly. It is like with the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme where landlords have started saying that if somebody is drawing the HAP, they would not take the person on as a tenant. This will happen now with vendors. They will say they will not take people on as purchasers if they are going to get a local authority loan. That will happen and there will be a large number of people excluded from the market.

We must deal with the real world. A credit committee meeting once a month is totally inadequate. That is an issue we must prioritise. We must examine it now and see what can be done to expedite the process. If there is a step-by-step process set out for the applicants and each of the boxes are ticked before the local authority gets the application, including all the documentation, it should not take six months for the application to be processed. This is happening with some of the other financial institutions as well; it is not just the local authorities. It is causing massive problems for young people who have only one opportunity of getting on the housing ladder. What if they miss it?

The couple I am dealing with, and I have dealt with a number of others who have the same problem, are unlikely to come back onto the market again. This is the sad problem we have. That is why this issue must be prioritised before we have the same thing as happened with the HAP scheme whereby the vendors will say that if it is a local authority loan they will not get their solicitors to send out contracts to people. I ask the Minister of State to give serious consideration to what I have said.

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