Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From the figures the Minister has put on the record today, it is patently obvious that he has taken a very good idea from Sinn Féin, although he and his Government resisted it for quite a while. However, when he finally gave in, he made a mess of the design of it. The fact that despite there being 700,000 mortgage holders across the State, only 18,000 households have received the full benefit of the mortgage interest tax credit at this point speaks volumes. Some €125 million was allocated for this tax credit yet only €15 million or €16 million has been claimed so far. As we pointed out during the debate on the legislation, one of the problems is that applicants are required to submit an income tax return and certificate of mortgage interest for 2022 and 2023. I warned the Minister that this would act as a disincentive. That is why Sinn Féin and I argued that it should be a deduction at source, which is how tax relief used to apply. However, because the Minister took so long to perform his U-turn and acknowledge the good idea put forward by Sinn Féin, Revenue was not given sufficient time to build capacity to implement this deduction at source, leaving us with this flawed scenario. Does the Minister accept that, given the level of uptake, this credit is failing?

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