John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo those comments in welcoming my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, who is a former Member of this House. I look forward to working with him in my role as spokesman and also as a member of the joint Oireachtas committee. We will have a lot of legislation in the House in the months ahead, not least in the area of planning, and I know the Minister of State will be a regular visitor here as a result. I congratulate him and have no doubt he will do exceptional work in his new role.

I want to bring a particular problem to the Minister of State's attention regarding what I feel are arbitrary ceilings on the maximum market value of properties that can be purchased with the assistance of the local authority home loan. There are also two further issues I want to raise, the first relating to the income limits that apply to applicants and the second relating to the interaction of the local authority home loan with the local authority affordable purchase scheme. For today's purposes, I am going to use my own county of Waterford, not to be parochial but because, thankfully, all of the schemes under Housing for All are available in Waterford at the moment.

The maximum market value of a property that can be purchased or self-built using the local authority home loan is €320,000 for the counties of Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow and €250,000 for the rest of the country. It is my contention that the threshold of €250,000 for the counties outside of Dublin, Cork and the commuter belt is too low, in particular for the counties of Waterford and the Minister of State's county of Limerick. I believe it needs to be increased to €300,000. More important, and of even more urgency, is how the local authority home loan interacts with the local authority affordable purchase price. In Waterford at the moment, Waterford City and County Council has, thankfully, 117 affordable purchase properties available for purchase at Summerfields and Deerpark in Waterford city.Sales are progressing well, although many of those properties are still available. I encourage anybody who wants assistance with them to contact the local authority.

The issue that has been brought to my attention by the local authority is the fact that the home loan is based on the market value of the property as opposed to the affordable purchase price, which means that purchasers are not in a position to use that local authority home loan and are restricted to participating lending institutions. While this is okay in the vast majority of cases, a number of people will need to avail of a loan who have been refused adequate loans from the pillar banks. Regarding a house priced at €300,000 under the affordable housing scheme, that is the market value. When the equity discount of €75,000 is applied to that, it brings the price down to €225,000. This means that a couple on a very average combined income of €51,000 are able to purchase a €300,000 A-rated home. While this is a fantastic opportunity in an excellent scheme, some people will need to avail of the local authority home loan. I am looking for it to be based on the affordable purchase price as opposed to the market value of the home. Perhaps the Minister of State could address that. The income threshold outside the commuter belt is €50,000 for an individual and €75,000 for a couple. These thresholds need to be looked at.