Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his answer. He spoke to me about it privately so I was aware of what was coming.

I will not give up on this because it is the right thing to do. If we need to get the relevant Ministers and bodies into a room to try to sort this out, we should. This cohort of people are the very people we should assist. I fully accept the Minister's point about the LTV ratio. I intend to try to get this cohort of people across the line. That is all. I read the Mazars report that stated the ratio should be increased to 80%. To be honest, at this stage I would accept 80% if the two schemes were combined and the 80% were to be allowed to be the base rate.

The families I spoke about are real. They honestly thought they had the chance to own their home and then they were ruled out. Last week, a couple were in with me who had a mortgage approved, but Bank of Ireland came back two weeks later and stated it had made an error of €30,000. That brought their mortgage down from 71% to 68.5% and their chance of owning a home in Newtown is now completely eroded and gone. When we talk about the LTV, we must acknowledge that the first home scheme is a debt. It is a loan. It might operate differently as regards the service charge and the repayment of the equity, but it is a debt. These people are not dead weight. The people who are dead weight do not need the scheme in the first place. These families need both the help-to-buy and first home schemes. I will continue to work with whoever I must to address this. I thank the Minister for his efforts to date.