'We feel exhausted': Allowance puts Kerry carer over income limit for council home scheme

Claire Healy, who was refused a housing scheme due to her carers allowance, penning a letter to An Taoiseach Micheal Martin at her home in Kilgarvan, County Kerry. Picture: Don MacMonagle

Just 44% of applications to a local authority mortgage support scheme have been approved so far this year.

The Department of Housing has said based on provisional figures for September, a majority — 56% — of about 1,500 valid applications for the scheme were declined.

The Local Authority Home Loan scheme (LAHL) is intended to provide mortgages to those who are struggling to obtain finance from banks.

Let down by Government

Mother-of-two Claire Healy said she feels “let down” by the Government, after Kerry County Council rejected her family's application because her carer’s allowance pushed them above the income ceiling.

Despite saving a 20% deposit for a house in Kenmare, Co Kerry, and maintaining an “excellent savings record”, Claire and her husband Finbar were rejected by every bank in the country.

“The banks are very nervous about self-builds,” she said. The average price of a house in Kenmare is between €250,000 and €380,000 according to perfectproperty.ie.

Turning to the LAHL scheme, the couple said the local authority “firmly closed the doors in our faces” after a carer’s allowance elevated them just €4,000 above the €75,000 joint income ceiling.

Ms Healy said: 

We feel exhausted from the need to fight so hard for a family home, when we have done everything we can.

She believes the carer’s allowance should not be included in a person’s income when applying for the scheme, and stressed they have double the deposit required by the scheme.

The family submitted multiple appeals to the local authority to no avail, and in a letter of complaint claimed they were being “penalised” for receiving the carer’s payment.

Ms Healy also said she was denied a Freedom of Information request for an unredacted credit policy for Kerry County Council.

After approaching the Minister for Housing about the matter, his office said if the family had exhausted the appeals process with the local authority, they could make a formal complaint to it, followed by a complaint to the Ombudsman.

A spokesperson for the Department said the final decision for the loan applications is a “matter for the relevant local authority”.

“Decisions on all housing loan applications must be made in accordance with the regulations establishing the scheme and the credit policy that underpins the scheme, in order to ensure prudence and consistency in approaches in the best interests of both borrowers and lending local authority,” the spokesperson said.

Banks taking into account the income in respect of the carer's allowance as supporting repayment capacity is a matter for banks’ credit policies, the Department of Housing has no role in determining these. 

"In addition, the policy responsibility for commercial mortgages lies with the Department of Finance”.

In a recent Dáil exchange, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien released figures for the LAHL since its launch on January 4 this year. 

They showed Cork City Council declined 33 of the 48 applications this year, with Cork County Council — which fielded the most applications in the country — declining 100 of the 153 applications. Kerry County Council declined 35 of the 48 applications.

The scheme is a successor to the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan scheme which launched in 2018, and was met with a huge level of demand unable to be met by the €200m allocation over a three-year period.