TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said that the Government will examine mortgage interest relief as part of the next Budget, as the European Central Bank confirmed a further interest rate hike.
“I know it’s going to be further bad news for mortgage holders, who are going to see their rates go up again and particularly people on trackers who have seen mortgages go up a lot in the past couple of months. It’s been a very big hit for them as well,” Varadkar said. The Government had previously had mortgage relief in effect for mortgage holders, but the tax relief was abolished in December 2020.
Varadkar added that while mortgage relief would be considered, he did not want that to be seen as a promise that it would be introduced.Sinn Féin proposal It comes as Sinn Féin are continuing to press the Government around reintroducing mortgage relief, with the party’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty arguing that other tax changes have been made outside the ordinary budgetary cycle.
“All of this is outside the normal budget cycle at a cost of hundreds of millions of euro so the argument that nothing can be done to support these families in the here and now with rising mortgage costs before October is simply a nonsense,” Doherty told the Dáil this afternoon.