Mortgage Interest Rates
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

If the Deputies want to have a direct link between every loan facility and the ECB interest rate, they have to be willing to say they want it for deposits as well. That will not be good either for many Irish businesses or families. There has to be a context to this conversation because people are watching at home and it is presented to them as though interest rates are way out of kilter with the European average. The point I am making with the evidence I put on the record of the House, which is available for all to read from the ECB and the Central Bank of Ireland, is that the gap is now narrowing.
I have heard it said for years that Irish mortgage holders pay the highest mortgage interest rates in the European Union. That is not true. We pay a little above the European average. That has real impacts on people in their bills, that is absolutely right. However, it was 3.56% in October and the European average was 3.3%. It is, therefore, absolutely prudent and sensible to say we should continue to look at what we can do at a European level.
I was at meetings as recently as last week about what we can do at a European level to complete the single market and make sure there are more opportunities for Ireland, which is a small country from the point of view of population, to be able to avail of banking services across the European Union and to attract banks in. It is not just talk. We saw yesterday the benefit of a new banking organisation entering the Irish economy. We have kept the banking levy, which is a tool at our disposal and it is reviewed each year in advance of the budget.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18