Council mortgages are not being offered to many young people who have an ability to repay.
That’s the view of Cllr Fintan Phelan who believes Carlow County Council needs to be more proactive in lending money for housing to people who can afford the repayments.
He also believes that income limits for couples to secure a Council housing loan is too low.
Speaking to KCLR Cllr Phelan said there’s a huge number of young people trying to apply for mortgages “they’re in good jobs, their income is too high for the council housing list so they’re entitled to no support from the council, then they’ve applied to banks for mortgages but the banks still aren’t lending sufficiently enough so they can’t get mortgages from the banks.”
Cllr Phelan adds “So the council do provide home loans for people in that situation, who are caught in the middle, but that group in the middle is growing & there’s a number of people that put in applications for housing loans.
And he says “it’s important the council would take a flexible approach regarding it & look at it whereby yes it’s important that the repayment capacity is there but that if there’s small bits that could be worked on that they be worked on with the council”.
