I worked my a**e off to get a deposit for a house... this scheme is just crazy Mum, 29, turned down for loan
Home loan scheme Rebecca Cowman low-interest home loan scheme. But their application was turned down because 100% of overtime earnings were included – though some local authorities only add 10% of the extra pay.
Rebecca, who was given notice to quit her Dublin home earlier this year and had to move to Meath, raged: “I’m paying €1,300 a month for a one-bed apartment and I have to share a bed with my fiveyear-old daughter.
“We’re in Ashbourne and her school is in Castleknock, then
Damien English I drive to work in Coolock. We’re in our fourth rental, my daughter has lost her room. One council official told me, ‘Why don’t you avail of Housing Assistance Payment, you can use it as a way of saving?’ But I’ve saved €34,000, I don’t qualify for social housing. “A council worker told me I’d qualify if I spent the money on holidays. I’d be better off on the dole. I have countless people telling me the same thing. “The families and people who are most vulnerable yet still work for what they have are left out of the scheme.”
Rebecca is heading a national campaign for a review of the programme and transparency and tighter regulation.
The Department of Finance warned against proceeding with the scheme that gives borrowers a fixed interest rate of 2% to 2.25% for 25 to 30 years saying the rationale for the loans was “unclear”.
Income cannot exceed €50,000 for a single person or €75,000 for a couple with applicants reportedly approved by one local authority and refused by another.
The Department of Housing said bonuses and overtime “are reckonable for calculation of borrowing and repayment capacity” but the final decision “is a matter for each local authority on a case by case basis”.
Fianna Fail TD Jack Chambers added: “I think this scheme was designed just to pay lip service, to pretend they were trying to deliver for low and middleincome families.”
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