Mayo County Councillors have hit out at the allocation of just €1,840,000 from the government under their Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan and Local Authority Home Loan Allocations for 2022.
The councillors were informed of the allocation at the February monthly meeting, which took place on Monday last and there was criticism from all sides of the house in relation to the amount of money that was granted under the scheme.
Castlebar based independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne pointed out that if there were ten applications under the scheme, they would each only be able to get a loan of around €180,000. He added: "More than ten people will look for home loans in the ten months left in the year and if these guys in Dublin don’t know that, it's no wonder the way things they are. You would need to be given ten loans per day to try and help people who cannot get loans. It really shows how out of touch they are."
Cllr Patsy O'Brien pointed out that the increased costs that people are facing to build their own homes is getting out of hand and despite wanting to build their own homes, young people simply can't do it. He said: "There's thousands of people willing to build their own houses if they could get some support from the government. Are they getting any support from the government? The answer is nil.
"I got a phone call from a young man who had plans to build his own house and he was notified that the windows he was to put in, had gone up by 33 percent. That is the predicament they are in. Young people are getting no chance because they don’t want people to live in rural Ireland and that is the bottom line."
Foxford based Fine Gael councillor Neil Cruise said that, with there being five electoral areas in the county, the funding might help just two people in each of the areas; he added that to him, this was a "shambles".
Director of Services for Mayo County Council, Tom Gilligan, accepted that the allocation was not that large but that if there was a demand for loans, there would be an opportunity for the council to apply for a larger allocation.
