I propose to take Questions Nos. 1405 to 1407, inclusive, together.
In accordance with the Regulations establishing the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan scheme, the local authorities are the statutory bodies responsible for approving and issuing mortgages under the scheme. Each authority has a credit committee, which is responsible for making the final decisions, within its area, regarding loan applications.
As such, my Department does not routinely collect the information referred to by the Deputy. However, towards the end of last year, for the purposes of a review of the operation of the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan scheme that has been undertaken by my Department, a request was made to a number of local authorities for information regarding processing times for loan applications.
Based on the information from those local authorities, and from the Housing Agency with regard to its assessment of applications, it is estimated the average time taken to process applications last year was seven weeks. This is in line with the expected timeframe of 6-8 weeks as set out on the RIHL website.