Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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96. To ask the Minister for Finance if he or his officials have met lenders or an organisation (details supplied) regarding the affordable purchase shared equity scheme that will come under the remit of his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3490/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme is a policy initiative which falls under the remit of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage following the allocation of €75m of funding as part of Budget 2021.

Officials in my Department have been providing on-going support and assistance to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Housing Agency in relation to the development of the scheme including interacting with the Banking and Payments Federation (BPFI) and the participating banks. The final details of the scheme, are still under discussion and remain to be finalised by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage over the coming months.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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97. To ask the Minister for Finance if he has sought views from the Central Bank on the proposed affordable purchase shared equity scheme, including its interaction with the mortgage lending rules; if so, the views of the Central Bank in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3493/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme is a policy initiative which falls under the remit of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage following the allocation of €75m of funding as part of Budget 2021.

Officials in my Department have been providing on-going support and assistance to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Housing Agency in relation to the development of the scheme including interacting with the Central Bank, the Banking and Payments Federation (BPFI) and the participating banks. The scheme is being designed to respect the macro prudential rules and the views of the Central Bank will be carefully considered.

The Central Bank has provided the following statement:

“The Central Bank of Ireland is aware of plans by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to introduce an Affordable Housing Shared Equity Scheme. Any queries in respect of the Scheme should be referred to the Department. Upon finalisation of the scheme design, the Central Bank will consider the interaction between the scheme and the mortgage measures as well as the proposed operation of the scheme from the perspective of our consumer protection mandate.

The mortgage measures were introduced with the aim of strengthening the resilience of both borrowers and the banking sector. The Central Bank is committed to annually reviewing the calibration of the mortgage measures in the context of wider housing and mortgage market developments, to ensure that they continue to meet their objectives of:

- Increasing the resilience of banks and borrowers to negative economic and financial shocks

- Dampening the pro-cyclicality of credit and house prices so a damaging credit-house price spiral does not emerge.”