Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I bow to the Minister's greater knowledge and wisdom in these matters. I am not even giving my opinion. I am looking at the various reports. The Mazars report states: "The scheme is poorly targeted with respect to incomes, location, house prices ... [and] has regressive impacts. ... the problems that it sought to address remain and the specific market failure at which it was targeted ... [is not likely] to be addressed." On and on we go, whether it is reports from the ESRI, Social Justice Ireland, Mazars, Revenue and whatever other report I have read. The scheme is "regressive", "poorly targeted" and the help is not needed by more than a third of those who have benefited from the scheme.

I am acutely aware of the people who have benefited. I also know that many of them had the deposit, as is borne out by the Parliamentary Budget Office in its overview of the help-to-buy scheme. According to that overview, one third of recipients did not need this help to meet the deposit requirements. It goes on through. Mazars advised that the scheme be scrapped although not now because it is embedded, there is a market expectation and it fits in with the Government's policy of buying up the market at all costs. That is why we cannot scrap the scheme just now.

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