Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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600. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of loans that have been applied for and approved, respectively, under the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme by local authority in tabular form; the number of council officials in each local authority area who are dealing with the applications for these loans; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27876/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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As with the previous local authority home loan offerings, loan applications under the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan are made directly to the local authority in whose area the property proposed for purchase is situated. My Department does not directly collect information on the number of enquiries to local authorities regarding the loan or the number of loan applications received by local authorities.

However, as is currently the case, my Department will continue to publish information on the overall number and value of (i) local authority loan approvals and (ii) local authority loan drawdowns.  Information up to Q3 2017 is available on the Department's website at the following link: , and this information will be updated on a quarterly basis as additional data is compiled.

The Housing Agency provides a central support service which assesses valid loan applications that are made to the local authorities and makes recommendations to the authorities as to whether loans should be offered to applicants.

I have asked the Agency to centrally compile figures of the numbers of applications that it has assessed, and the most recent figures, as at the end of May, indicate that the Agency had received a total of 1,499 applications for assessment from local authorities. This was made up of 540 applications from Cork, Galway, Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow and 619 applications from Dublin. There were 340 applications received from counties outside those listed.

Of the 1,499 applications received, 1,150 were deemed to be valid. Of these valid applications, 876 had been assessed and 52% of these had been recommended for approval.

Each local authority must have in place a credit committee whose responsibility it is to make the decision on applications for loans, in accordance with the regulations, having regard to the recommendations made by the Housing Agency.

In relation the number of council officials in each local authority area dealing with applications, it is a matter for each local authority to determine the level of staffing assigned to administering the Scheme, having regard to its resources, its staffing priorities and the volume of applications it anticipates in respect of the new Loan Scheme.