Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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974. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the criteria for the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme will be changed to include non-first time buyers such as those that may have had their homes repossessed during the recession and that could now be in the financial position to pay back a loan. [23669/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan Scheme enables credit-worthy first-time buyers to access sustainable mortgage lending to purchase new or second-hand properties in a suitable price range, where they cannot obtain sufficient mortgage finance from a commercial lender. 

As with the previous local authority loan offerings, the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan is available to first-time buyers only. This is set out in the regulations governing the Scheme and is designed to ensure the effective targeting of limited resources. 

The final decision on loan approval is a matter for the relevant local authority and its credit committee on a case-by-case basis.  Decisions on all housing loan applications must be made in accordance with the Regulations establishing the scheme and the credit policy, that underpins the scheme, in order to ensure prudence and consistency in approaches in the best interests of both borrowers and the lending local authorities.