Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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343. To ask the Minister for Finance the total number of persons who have applied for the help-to-buy scheme in each county in each of the past five years, in tabular form. [1614/25]

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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344. To ask the Minister for Finance the total number of persons who have successfully availed of the help-to-buy scheme in each of the past five years, in tabular form. [1615/25]

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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345. To ask the Minister for Finance the total number of rejected applications for the help-to-buy scheme in each county in each of the past five years, in tabular form. [1616/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 343 to 345, inclusive, together.

The Help to Buy scheme operates through a Revenue online system that includes three distinct stages, application stage, claim stage and verification stage. The relevant property must be identified at the claim stage. The Deputy might note that applications for Help to Buy may be made on a provisional basis as first time buyers will want to have certainty as to their entitlements in advance of commencing the purchase of a property. An application will only progress to the “claim” stage if and when the applicant decides to purchase a property that is eligible for the scheme. "Applications" data is therefore not available on a county basis as a property is generally not selected at this stage.

I am advised by Revenue that the table below sets out the number of applications and applicants for the Help to Buy scheme over the most recent five years for which fully analysed data is currently available.

Full year data in relation to 2024 will be finalised in the coming weeks and Revenue will publish their annual report on HTB next month. It will be available on the Revenue website at:

www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/htb/yearly.aspx.

At the "claim" stage, the information is made available (electronically) to Help to Buy approved third party contractors (when purchasing a property) or solicitors (when self-building a property) for verification. Once verified by the relevant third party, the claim is paid. If the claim is rejected by the relevant third-party, then no payment is made. The number of rejected claims in the years in question are set out in the table below. It is not possible to provide a breakdown by county for these claims due to the low numbers of claims involved and Revenue’s obligation to protect taxpayer confidentiality.

The tables below provides a county breakdown of fully approved claims by year and county for the five most recent years for which data is available and provides both the number of claims and the number of applicants associated with those claims, as of January 2025.