2026-03-18

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Housing Loans Regulations 2021 so as to allow applications to local authorities for housing loans by persons who are remaining in the family home following a divorce or legal separation and who need mortgage finance to buyout their former partner’s share of the family home. As the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, knows, the local authority home loan is a very valuable and long-standing support for people looking to buy their own home. A number of years ago, the Government extended the fresh start principle to this product. As the Minister also knows, the fresh start principle, equally a very important intervention, allows people who have given up an interest in the family home following relationship breakdown or insolvency to access Government schemes such as the home loan. One of the anomalies in the system at the moment is that you can access the home loan if you are leaving the family home but if you are the person remaining in the family home, you cannot. The situation is one I am sure many TDs in the House have come across. A relationship breaks down, a marriage or a partnership results in separation or divorce and the person who remains in the family home and who wants to buy out their former partner simply has no access to mortgage credit. Typically speaking, their income or their age will prohibit them from it. The whole point of fresh start was to allow people to make a fresh start in life when there were significant changes. Therefore, there is a very compelling argument for the Government to amend the statutory instrument underpinning the local authority home loan to ensure that both parties to a relationship breakdown can access the fresh start principle: the former partner who is divesting their interest in what was their family home and the partner who wants to remain. Very often, it is women with children. If we cannot provide them with some avenue to access appropriate mortgage finance to buy out their former partner or husband's interest, then, unfortunately, they are forced to sell the property, which is in neither their nor their children's best interests. The legislation I am introducing today is very simple. It is one of those Bills I cannot see why anybody would oppose it. It does not give anybody an automatic right to the mortgage finance. They would still have to apply and still have to meet all the other lending criteria as per the Housing Agency and the local authority's risk assessment. It would simply ensure, however, that both sides to a relationship breakdown could access the fresh start principle in the context of the local authority home loan. On that basis, I hope that when I move the Bill on Second Stage, it will not only get Government support but also speedy enactment. This is one of those occasions where Deputies can just do the right thing. Government and Opposition can see a very sensible, reasonable proposal that was in fact put to me by somebody who was in this situation and who, when they went to apply for the local authority home loan, was told that they could not do so but that their partner or ex-partner who was divesting their interest in the family home was able to access that source of finance. It is a simple, practical step. It could be transformative for the lives of people for whom it would open up an avenue to secure full ownership of the family home. On that basis, I commend it to the House.

Is the Bill opposed?

No.

Since this is a Private Members' Bill, Second Stage must, under Standing Orders, be taken in Private Members' time.

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."