Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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42. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the number of applications that have been received to date in 2017 under the revised mortgage to rent scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33376/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Review of the Mortgage to Rent Scheme,published on 8 February 2017, introduced a range of amendments to the eligibility criteria and administration of the scheme in order for it to work better for borrowers. The changes to the eligibility criteria came into effect on 27 March 2017.Since the introduction of the Mortgage to Rent (MTR) Scheme in 2012, a total of 3,694 cases have been submitted under the scheme to the end of June 2017. 22 of these are new applications received by the Housing Agency, under the revised eligibility criteria applicable since 27 March 2017.

Changes to the scheme mean that certain steps of the MTR process are now required to be completed prior to the submission of a completed MTR application to the Housing Agency. The broadening of the eligibility criteria and streamlining of the administrative process were welcomed by all stakeholders, and I understand from the Housing Agency that the process changes have had an initial impact on the number of applications under the revised scheme. However, it will be several more months before an increase in the number of successful cases will be apparent given that the optimum timeframe for processing a case should reduce to 9 months following the implementation of the Review’s actions. My Department and the Housing Agency are working with all stakeholders to ensure that the actions set out in the Review are being effectively implemented to benefit a greater number of households.

The Housing Agency publishes, on a quarterly basis, detailed statistical information on the operation of the MTR scheme. This information is available on the Agency's website at the following link:

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The Review also concluded that the current financial model of the Mortgage to Rent scheme may not, in its current configuration, be capable of delivering the scale of successful cases that could benefit from the scheme over time. In order to test the operability of the alternative funding models for the scheme, the Housing Agency is working with a number of financial entities who have come forward with an interest in working with the Mortgage to Rent scheme to progress a number of pilot alternative long-term lease arrangements. In advance of these pilots, a targeted market testing exercise was undertaken by the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA), to test the suitability of the proposed enhanced leasing arrangements to ascertain if they would be viable for a mortgage to rent cohort, taking account of the necessity to provide a long-term stable solution for eligible households. The comments received from interested parties are being reviewed by my Department and the Housing Agency.

The next step is to issue a formal call for Expressions of Interest from institutions interested in taking part in the pilot operating models. It is anticipated that the Housing Agency will manage the evaluation process on behalf of my Department and make recommendations on the make-up of the pilots. The drafting of the content of the Expressions of Interest is currently underway.