Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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226. To ask the Minister for Finance the extent to which he remains satisfied that first-time house buyers or the purchasers of a family home are not being priced out of the market; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16745/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Although the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government has overall responsibility for housing policy, my Department monitors developments in this area as clearly there are potential spillover effects to the rest of the economy.

The recovery in the economy and the pick-up in employment over the last number of years has led to strong growth in the demand for housing. The lack of a sufficient supply response to date reflects structural constraints within the housing market.

Rebuilding Ireland, The Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness reflects the Government's commitment to addressing the ongoing issues in the housing market.  The Action Plan contains 113 actionable measures across five key pillars namely to Address Homelessness, Accelerate Social Housing, Build More Homes, Improve the Rental sector, and Utilise Existing Housing.   These actions are designed to help address the structural constraints evident in the housing market by, inter alia, streamlining the planning system, removing infrastructure blockages and supporting the delivery of affordable housing.

A Help to Buy tax incentive was introduced in Budget 2017 as a complement to the structural measures contained in Rebuilding Ireland. The initiative seeks to do this by providing immediate support to first time buyers helping to ensure the availability of adequate, affordable mortgage finance for first time buyers as new residential housing output comes on stream.

The Deputy will be aware that during the Committee Stage debate on the relevant section of Finance Act 2016, I agreed to commission an independent impact assessment on the effects of the Help to Buy incentive. My officials have issued a Request for Tender (RFT) for the production of such an assessment. It stipulates that the study should assess whether the policy objectives on the supply of new homes are being met, what impact (if any) the scheme is having on new and second-hand house prices, and what impact the scheme is having on the residential property market generally. The output of this assessment will be a written report to be completed and submitted to me by 31 August 2017.