Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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291. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to apply the 'fresh start’ principle to the help-to-buy scheme, similar to the local authority home loan scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55342/22]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Section 10 of the Affordable Housing Act 2021 sets out the Government's "fresh start" principle, which provides for certain exceptions to the eligibility criteria for affordable dwelling purchase arrangements. These are, where the person applying:

- had previously purchased/built a dwelling as part of a marriage/civil partnership/intimate and committed relationship that has now ended, and that person does not retain a beneficial interest in the dwelling;

- had previously purchased a dwelling, but sold it/became divested of it as part of insolvency/bankruptcy proceedings;

- owns or owned a dwelling that it is now too small/unsuitable for current household needs (according to regulations and/or guidelines issued to housing authorities).

Section 477C of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (TCA) requires that applicants for the Help to Buy (HTB) scheme must be first-time purchasers, which is defined as:

" 'first-time purchaser' means an individual who, at the time of a claim under subsection (3) has not, either individually or jointly with any other person, previously purchased or previously built, directly or indirectly, on his or her own behalf a dwelling;"

There are no exceptions to the HTB definition of first time purchaser. This includes circumstances where there is more than one person involved in the purchase or building of a new home. The intention behind this is to target the tax relief on those who have not had the opportunity to build up equity in another property which could be used to purchase the second or subsequent property and those who could not have availed of HTB relief previously.

While I am aware of the recent stance adopted by the Central Bank on this issue, there are no plans at the present moment to broaden out HTB to include those who might qualify under the "fresh start" heading.  This position has regard among other things to the fact that, as announced in the Budget and as provided for in Finance Bill 2022, HTB is being extended for a further two years to end-2024 in its enhanced form first put in place in July 2020.