Almost half of all people who apply for the Government’s Help to Buy scheme are getting nothing out of it, raising fresh questions about how effective the programme actually is.
New figures show that just under 49,000 people have received financial support through the scheme since it was relaunched in July 2020. While that sounds like a decent number on paper, the data tells a more uncomfortable story when you look at the full picture of how many people applied versus how many actually got help.
Help to Buy was designed to give first-time buyers a leg up onto the property ladder by offering a tax rebate of up to €30,000 to put towards a deposit on a new build home. The idea was straightforward enough. Young people and first-time buyers were being locked out of the market, and this was supposed to be one of the tools to fix that.
But critics have long argued the scheme has serious gaps. Not everyone who applies qualifies, and the rules around eligibility can be strict. The property has to be a new build, it has to be below a certain price threshold, and applicants have to meet specific income tax requirements to claim anything back. For a lot of people, especially those buying in Dublin and other high-cost areas where new builds regularly push past the price limits, the scheme simply does not apply to them.
Housing campaigners have pointed out for years that Help to Buy, while useful for some, does little for people trying to buy second-hand homes, which make up the vast majority of properties on the market in Ireland. If you find a home you can actually afford but it happens to be a 1990s semi-detached in a commuter town rather than a brand new development, you are out of luck.
There is also the broader argument that schemes like this can actually push prices up rather than bring them down. When buyers have access to extra cash through government supports, sellers and developers can factor that into their pricing. Some economists have made the case that Help to Buy has contributed to inflating the cost of new builds rather than making housing genuinely more affordable.
The Government has defended the scheme repeatedly, pointing to the tens of thousands of people who have used it successfully to get onto the property ladder. From their perspective, 49,000 households supported since 2020 is a meaningful achievement during one of the worst housing crises in the history of the state.
But with rejection rates running at nearly half of all applicants, there is a growing sense that the scheme needs a serious rethink. People who are already stretched thin trying to save a deposit, navigate rising rents, and compete in an incredibly tight market are applying in good faith and coming away with nothing.
Housing remains one of the most politically charged issues in Ireland right now. The coalition government has faced sustained pressure over its handling of the crisis, and schemes like Help to Buy are regularly held up as examples of policy that looks good in a press release but falls short in practice.
With a significant chunk of applicants getting no benefit at all, the pressure to either reform or replace the scheme is only going to grow.