Eamon Quinn: How the Bank of Mum and Dad is fuelling Irish house prices

Parents pumped €149m into house prices in the first half of this year, putting homes beyond the reach of many young people

Members of the older generation are dipping into their savings to help their offspring buy their homes — but this in turn is putting up the prices they face in the property market. Picture: Denis Minihane

The banking industry has, for the first time, published the significant sums that mortgage borrowers are forced to tap from their families to have any chance of getting a home of their own.

It was known that first-time borrowers have needed to tap the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad to have any chance of saving for a deposit and securing a mortgage. The new figures show that first-time buyers required gifts from family members that amounted to over €149m in the first half of the year alone.