Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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131. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of help-to-buy tax reliefs provided to home buyers since the scheme was introduced by house price ranges (details supplied) in tabular form. [37472/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Help To Buy (HTB) incentive, announced in Budget 2017 and backdated to 16 July 2016, is designed to assist first-time buyers with the deposit required to purchase or self-build a new house or apartment to live in as their home.

The incentive provides for a refund of Income Tax and DIRT paid over the previous four tax years, limited to a maximum of 5% of the purchase value up to a value of €400,000. The HTB refund is capped at €20,000. This incentive is available for the period from 19 July 2016 to 31 December 2019.

Revenue advise me that the HTB scheme has a number of phases. Initially an application is made; this will progress to the claim stage if the applicant decides to purchase a property that is eligible for the scheme. Claims are then approved and paid by Revenue, provided the qualifying contractor or solicitor has verified the claim. At any given time there will be a number of pending claims awaiting approval, the vast majority of which are approved.

To date, 14,722 HTB claims have been made, of which 13,955 are approved.

Revenue advise me that they are unable to provide data relating to the house prices in the €50k bands specified in the Deputy's question. However, they have provided me with information regarding the number of claims made in €75k bands since the introduction of the scheme (i.e. over the period 16 July 2016 to 31 August 2019) as follows: