Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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147. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated number of mortgages eligible for the mortgage interest relief scheme announced in budget 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47175/23]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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148. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of primary dwelling home mortgages with an outstanding balance of less than €80,000 at end-2022; and the estimated number of such mortgages that would otherwise have been eligible for the mortgage interest relief scheme announced in budget 2024, had the €80,000 outstanding balance limit not applied. [47177/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 147 and 148 together.

For the purposes of developing the Mortgage Interest Tax Relief (MITR) measure, data provided by the Central Bank drawn from the Central Credit Register as at end June 2023 (the latest available in advance of Budget 2024) was utilised. Therefore, this data was also used for the purposes of answering the Deputy's question to ensure consistency.

Based on this data, it is estimated that approximately 208,000 Private Dwelling Homes (PDH) mortgage accounts will be eligible for the new MITR scheme.

With regard to the number of PDH mortgage accounts with balances below €80,000, it is estimated that there were 253,400 such mortgage accounts, of which an estimated 137,800 accounts are projected to have a higher interest bill in 2023 compared to 2022.

However, it is important to note that some of the 137,800 accounts may already be covered by the MITR as introduced in Budget 2024. This is because some lower-balance accounts, such as top-up mortgages, may be part of the same PDH mortgage facility as an account of higher value. Collectively, some of these accounts may therefore be part of already-eligible mortgages for MITR, in terms of balance size as announced in Budget 2024. It is not possible to definitively estimate the extent of their inclusion in the new MITR scheme, given the known parameters and data limitations.