Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 23 May 2000

Vol. 519 No. 5

Written Answers. - Housing Loans.

Sean Fleming

Question:

241 Mr. Fleming asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the number of loans for house purchases in each of the past five years; the number of these loans which were for first time buyers and non-first time buyers. [14307/00]

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. Molloy):

Data on the total number of mortgage loans approved for all house buyers is published in my Department's housing statistics bulletin. The following table gives the total number of loans approved since 1995.

Year	Loans approved for all houses
1995	49,288
1996	61,006
1997	64,652
1998	68,925
1999	78,572

While my Department does not have an exact breakdown of how many loans are approved to first time buyers, representative data from the house purchase loan survey, which is based on mortgage loan payments, indicates that the proportion of loans issued to first time buyers has increased in the last few years.

Year	Percentage of loans issued to first time buyers
1995	51.1
1996	43.4
1997	40.5
1998	41.3
1999	43.7