I refer to the Rebuilding Ireland programme. I am glad that the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government is in the House. The Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme is not working. My colleagues in the Rural Independents group and many other Deputies know of cases of people who had no problem in receiving refusals from the banks, either by telephone or email, but when they apply to the county councils, they find that there is no co-ordination between the Department and the local authorities. They are all over the place.

Does the Deputy have a question?

I am referring to people on modest incomes who have some savings and want to house themselves. They are not expecting the Government to provide them with housing. They are honest, hard working and on modest incomes, but there is utter confusion between the county councils and the Department. Someone needs to provide clarity and the county councils need to be on the same page as the Minister. It is a serious issue-----

It is not necessary to elaborate further on it.

I thank Deputy Mattie McGrath for his question. The Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme which I announced earlier this year has proved to be very popular.

It is popular, but it is not working.

There has been great interest across the country in the loan scheme and there have been a number of successful applicants to date this year. However, we have to be very careful. We must make prudent decisions in the context of mortgage lending at local authority level. A meeting was held last week between officials from my Department, the Housing Agency and the Housing Finance Agency to discuss the implementation of the loan scheme in certain local authorities where there may be a misunderstanding. Communications will issue to these local authorities to help them to better deal with the public in accessing this very important mortgage option.

They are not getting access to it.

The loan is at a fixed rate over 30 years and a very important product for those who want to buy their own homes.