Finance (No. 2) Bill 2023: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2023-12-05 ============================================================ John Cummins (FG), Labour Panel I move recommendation No. 5: In page 14, between lines 29 and 30, to insert the following: “7. The Minister shall, within 3 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the operation of the Help-to-Buy Scheme since its introduction in 2017 and since its expansion in 2020.”. We have touched on the help-to-buy scheme. It was introduced in 2017. When I think back to that time, one of the issues raised with us as Fine Gael representatives, as I am sure it was with other representatives, was deposits. At that time, the difficulty for first-time buyers was that they were not able to get their deposit together. Over recent years that has abated for first-time buyers to a large extent because of the help-to-buy scheme. It provides up to €30,000 back of the tax a person has paid in the previous four years. It is a positive measure by Government. Some in the Opposition would say it should be abolished and that we should not have a help-to-buy scheme to support first-time buyers. I disagree fundamentally with that position. They say they will give a month's rent in tax with one hand, but they will take away €30,000 with the other. By any measure that is an exceptionally bad deal for a first-time buyer looking to get their foot on the ladder. Help-to-buy is a positive measure. I would like a report within three months on its operation and perhaps to feed in the pieces referred to by Senator Casey. Having that deposit is a lifeline for so many people. More than 1,100 people in my own county of Waterford have used the help-to-buy scheme over recent years. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2023-12-05/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:29+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-12-05