Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 425: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the number of persons who have availed of the home choice loan; the cost to administer this scheme and the future of this scheme. [9777/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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To date, 129 applications have been made under the Home Choice Loan scheme. Of these, 22 have been approved, with 10 loans now drawn down, 7 have been withdrawn and the remaining applications have been declined.

The total cost to date of administering the scheme is approximately €306,000. These costs were met fully from within existing resources of the Affordable Homes Partnership and, since its establishment on an administrative basis, the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency. It should be noted that a significant element of the total cost was incurred in the development of the loan processing model which applies to the Home Choice Loan but which has also now been used in the development of revised systems for processing and credit checking of normal local authority house purchase loan applications under other schemes such as affordable housing, shared ownership etc. This new model has been highly effective in improving the loan processing procedures, providing for more rigorous credit checking and allowing for more prudential mortgage lending generally by local authorities.

The scheme is intended to be a temporary one which will be withdrawn once conditions in credit markets return to normal patterns. Recent data published by the Central Bank would indicate that that point has not yet been reached.