John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support the points Senator Casey made about this. I made the case to the Ministers, Deputies Darragh O'Brien and Donohoe, about the changes we implemented this year relating to the interaction with the local authority affordable purchase scheme. Thankfully, those changes have now been made.To echo Senator Casey's point, the people we are talking about are a different cohort. You can differentiate between a cohort just using the help-to-buy scheme and a mortgage, and those who are using the help-to-buy scheme and the first home scheme. By virtue of using the first home scheme, it has been determined that a person faces a challenge in reaching that purchase price. In the same way as the Government has acknowledged that a person cannot buy on the open market if he or she is accessing the local authority affordable purchase scheme, the same principle applies in the context of the first home scheme. I support us doing the exact same as we have determined with the local authority affordable purchase scheme in its interaction with the first home scheme. That does not change the parameters for somebody who does not require the first home scheme. That stays at 70%. There is no further interaction. We will talk about the help-to-buy scheme in the next section. However, on that point, there is a differentiating factor and it can be easily determined.