MORE THAN 1,000 applications have been lodged for the government’s First Home Scheme since it opened in July, according to Minister for Housing.
The scheme, which opened in July, involves the government taking a stake in a home purchase to help make up the difference between the buyer’s level of mortgage approval and the cost of the property.
Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said that many people seeking help from the scheme were renters “stuck in a rental trap”.
Speaking at the Ploughing Championships, the Minister said: Many of the people who have accessed that scheme and have now been able to buy their own home at an affordable rate are renters, people who were stuck in a rental trap”.
“In two short months, we’ve had well over 1,000 applications to that. We’ve issued our first contracts and we’ve had nearly 400 eligibility certs issued,” O’Brien said.
He said those will equate to “actual homes now that people are going to be able to buy because the state is bridging the affordability gap by taking an equity”.
As the minister arrived at the government’s Housing for All tent at the Ploughing Championships today, there were a large number of attendees eager to speak to the minister to press him on the housing crisis.
The minister told reporters that the “rental market is very difficult, it is very difficult for renters, there’s no question”.
Alongside the ordinary demands on the housing sector, the department has been trying to provide accommodation for refugees who have fled Russia’s war on Ukraine since February.
“We’ve already responded as a people, firstly, and supported by government through an unprecedented situation in Ukraine, where we’ve been able to house and accommodate over 50,000 of our Ukrainian friends here who fled their country because of, as we all know, a brutal attack on them by Putin and by Russian forces,” O’Brien said.
“We’re continuing the refurbishment of older properties, what were previously non-residential properties, that is moving at pace. Bed spaces are being handed over at this stage. But the situation is not easy, there’s no question about that.”
Minister O’Brien compared Ireland’s response to the UK’s, which has been criticised on some fronts for having been relatively slower than certain other countries to support Ukrainian refugees.
“I think when you look at our nearest neighbour, we’ve responded as a country that has had, through our own history, that understands completely what it’s like to be persecuted, what it’s like to have our families and our predecessors and ancestors have to leave this country.
“I think it’s incumbent upon us morally that we do everything we can to help and we will and will continue to do.”
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