Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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599. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of applications submitted to date under the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme; the number of applications that have been approved to date; the number and value of mortgages that have been drawn down to date by local authorities; the average length of time from the point of application to approval; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47023/18]

Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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636. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the lengthy waiting times for applications to be completed under the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme; if his attention has been further drawn to the growing concern amongst many applicants that such delays could jeopardise the sale of a property to them; and the resources that will be made available to local authorities to expedite the process. [47024/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 599 and 636 together.

My Department publishes information on the overall number and value of (i) local authority loan approvals and (ii) local authority loan drawdowns. Information up to Q2 2018, including in relation to number and value of mortgage drawdowns, 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 provide a central support service which assesses loan applications that are made to the local authorities for the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan (RIHL) and makes recommendations to the authorities as to whether loans should be offered to applicants. I have asked the Agency to centrally compile figures on the numbers of applications that it has received since the scheme began and also the number of applications it has assessed and recommended for approval. The most recent figures, as at the end of October, indicate that the Agency has received a total of 3,309 applications for assessment since the scheme launched in February. Of these, 619 were deemed invalid, while the assessment of 107 other applications was still in progress. Of the remainder, 1,317 applications have been recommended for approval by the Housing Agency.

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

Regarding timeframes from the point of application to approval under the scheme, recent requests to local authorities for initial data on timeframes for application processing within their area has found that it takes an average time of circaseven weeks from submitting a completed application to a local authority to receiving approval under the scheme, which is in line with the expected timeframe of 6-8 weeks as set out on the RIHL website. Approvals are valid for six months to allow applicants time to source a property to purchase.