WITH only 20 of 76 home loan applications approved by the Council in 2023, councillors were this week blaming red tape and bureaucracy.
At this Monday’s full meeting of the local authority, council members were asked to consider approving application for sanction from the Minister for Housing and Local Government, for a loan in the amount of €5.5million to fund the drawdown of Local Authority Home Loans.
Fine Gael councillor Stephen Keary asked why almost €6m was needed when only 20 out of 76 loans were approved last year.
“It just seems very low. 20 out of 70. Why is it so low? Are they not qualifying?
Director of Housing, Caroline Curley explained that there was 76 applications received in 2023 with 20 given approval in principle. The value of approval in principle loans, she said, was €2.8 million with five loans drawn down to date to a value of €700,071.
“We don’y draw the money down. We only draw it down as the loans are taken out. The money doesn’t come down otherwise.
“There are various reasons why they are low. A lot of time they (applicants) don’t qualify because they don’t meet the criteria or they haven’t put the paperwork in,” she pointed out.
“Is there any mentoring being offered?” Cllr Keary enquired.
“Our staff assists anyone that comes in with their applications as best we can,” Ms Curley replied.
Keary told the Housing Director that councillors are “getting it in the face” that there’s no houses available. He took the view hat when young couples try to put a roof over their head, they are being stymied in every way.
“The money doesn’t seem to be available. There’s too much bloody bureaucracy and red tape around the whole process of a home loan from a local authority,” he hit out.
Ms Curley told him that the Council is obliged to comply with the terms of the schemes and people have to provide the correct paperwork.
“Because if we didn’t we would have people complaining that we were doing something underhanded.”
Fine Gael councillor and auctioneer Tom Ruddle, who worked as a mortgage broker in the past, was not impressed with the 20 out of 76 success rate.
“All the trouble people have to go through with paperwork. First of all they have to be refused in two banks. To be honest about it, I find it is way harder to get a loan off the council than anybody else. It’s a total waste of time for people trying to get a loan off the council,” Cllr Ruddle claimed.
“When I was a mortgage broker I used to do about 80 a year, and I was only a one man band. Shur, this isn’t working at all.”
Ms Curley told council members that they were looking at the figures the wrong way around.
“Twenty out of 76 would not appear to be great. But the fact of the matter is, we are the lending authority of last resort. These people have already been refused the commercial banks so you know that there credit rating isn’t as high as it could be to get the loan. Twenty more people did manage to get loans there. Twenty more people managed to house themselves as a result of that. If we didn’t operate that, then that’s 20 less people able to house themselves,” she concluded.
