OPINION: A fresh start for those experiencing marriage breakdown

Deputy Jackie Cahill

Thirty-six years ago, Ireland was a very cold place for those experiencing marriage breakdown, writes Fianna Fáil Deputy Jackie Cahill.

In that year 63% of the Irish electorate voted against giving people in such situations the ability to make a fresh start.

Many decades on, the constitutional prohibition on divorce is long since gone but there remain significant barriers to allowing people to make a new life for themselves when their marriage has reached an end. The key barrier being housing.

Many couples who reach a decision to end their marriage are often faced with impossible decisions about where they will live and how they may ever be able to own a home again. For fathers this can be a particular problem, as they are unable to secure alternative housing for themselves or indeed to help them accommodate access arrangements to their children.

Housing has traditionally been viewed through a ‘nuclear family’ type prism and that’s just not the reality of the world we live in.

While ‘Housing for All’ contained many detailed solutions to our housing crisis, one that is often overlooked is the introduction of the ‘fresh start’ principle. If your marriage has come to an end and your home is sold, you may be left with a small cash amount but your pathway to owning a home can seem impossible.

Prior to Housing For All, many of the supports to help people own a home were only available to first time buyers. The ‘Fresh Start’ principle now applies to many of those supports.

This means that people who are divorced or separated and have no financial interest in the family home are eligible to apply for schemes such as the Local Authority Home Loan Scheme and applications to affordable housing developments being built by local councils, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency. The ‘fresh start’ principle also now applies to the shared equity First Home Scheme, in which the State and participating banks pay up to 30% of the cost of your new home in return for an equity stake.

Last week we also saw the Central Bank make a number of changes to the criteria required for a borrower to be considered a first-time buyer for the purposes of the mortgage measures. Now borrowers who are divorced or separated may be considered first time buyers for the mortgage measures where they no longer have an interest in the previous property.

First time buyers who get a top-up loan or re-mortgage with an increase in the principal may be considered “first time”, provided the property remains their primary home.

However, there is one scheme where the ‘Fresh start’ principle is not applied and that’s the Help to Buy scheme. This allows borrowers to claim back tax which they have paid to use as a deposit. While we always have to be careful with demand side policies while supply is catching up, I believe we need to give people needing a fresh start access to the Help to Buy scheme too.

Ireland has changed over the last four decades; housing needs have evolved and it’s good to see policies changing with the times.