Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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112. To ask the Minister for Finance if he has had discussions with the banks on negative equity trade-up mortgages in terms of increasing their availability for growing families. [30929/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Finance, I have no role in the decision making processes of credit institutions and what products any such institutions wish to provide. This is a commercial matter for each individual credit institution having regard to the relevant legal and regulatory requirements which apply.

The Deputy may, however, be interested to note that the Central Bank of Ireland, as part of its independent mandate to preserve and protect financial stability in Ireland, introduced macro-prudential measures for residential mortgage lending in February 2015. These macro-prudential measures apply certain loan-to-value (LTV) and loan-to-income (LTI) restrictions to residential mortgage lending by financial institutions regulated by the Central Bank. Currently these measures generally provide, subject to a certain level of discretion available to lenders, that the size of a primary dwelling residential mortgage loan shall not exceed 3.5 times the gross annual income of the borrower(s) or, in the case of a second and subsequent buyer(s), 80 per cent of the value of the residential property which will act as security for the mortgage loan.

However, the particular loan-to-value restrictions on mortgage borrowers as set out in the regulations do not apply to borrowers in negative equity who wish to purchase a new home. This means that the mortgage shortfall remaining after a person sells their existing home can be added to the balance of the new mortgage for a new home and that the macro-prudential deposit requirements will not apply to that new mortgage.

Nevertheless, it should also be noted that, subject to the requirement to comply with the provisions of the Central Bank Consumer Protection Code and other regulatory requirements, ultimately it is still a commercial matter for an individual lender to decide whether or not to provide a new mortgage loan in any particular case, or how much new credit to provide in any particular case.