The Housing Agency provides a central support service which assesses applications for the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan on behalf of local authorities and makes recommendations to the authorities to approve or refuse applications.
I have asked the Agency to compile figures on the numbers of applications that it has assessed, recommended to approve and recommended to decline since the scheme began for both Galway City and Galway County Council. The most recent figures, as at the end of August 2019, are set out in the following table -
Local Authority
|
Applications Assessed
|
Recommended to Approve
|
Recommended to Decline
|
Galway City Council
|
102
|
55
|
47
|
Galway County Council
|
168
|
60
|
108
|
For Quarter 1 2019, the average values of loans approved by Galway City Council and Galway County Council were €184,840 and €152,421, respectively.
Processing of a complete and valid application takes approximately six to eight weeks. Each local authority must have in place a credit committee and it is a matter for the committee to make the decision on applications for loans, in accordance with the regulations, having regard to the recommendations made by the Housing Agency.