Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-22
============================================================

Séamus McGrath (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Taoiseach. I welcome his response and I fully accept what he said about the Government supports for first-time buyers. They have been quite significant and the proof of that is in the figures on mortgage drawdown. There are a high number of first-time buyers in that position to draw down a mortgage and that is welcome. The Taoiseach is also correct on the simplifcation of the system in 2010. I would argue that one of the unintended consequences of that was that it imposed a stamp duty charge on first-time buyers. It is only consistent with our other policies that we would look to introduce a relief on that. I also accept that is something that would have to be discussed in a budgetary context. I repeat here again today, however, that if the Taoiseach can take that up with his colleagues in Cabinet and in particular with the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, I think it would be the only fair, equitable and consistent approach by Government in parallel with the other supports we have put in place for first-time buyers.

---

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/dail/2026-04-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-22