Opposition parties have criticised the Government over the confusion surrounding mortgage interest relief.
In the Budget, it was announced that the relief would apply only for the first seven years of a mortgage, and was to be withdrawn in other cases from May 1.
But Revenue has said that, because of difficulty in establishing who is entitled to continuing relief, it will stop it at source for everyone except first-time buyers. Anyone who is entitled to continuing relief will receive it once the situation has been clarified.
Revenue says this will happen automatically in June, and that any arrears in relief due will be credited to people's accounts without their needing to take any action.
'Where an entitlement to relief cannot be established then Revenue will be writing to those mortgage holders in the coming weeks. Where such account holders provide information to Revenue that establishes their entitlement to mortgage relief, tax relief at source will then be reactivated by Revenue. Again any arrears of relief will be credited to the account,' Revenue said. It says more information will be available at www.revenue.ie from tomorrow (Thursday).
Labour and Fine Gael both said this was another example of the Government's being unable to follow through on its Budget announcements.
Earlier, the Central Bank said the number of people in personal debt is growing rapidly, driven by mortgage borrowings.
At an Oireachtas Committee this morning the head of statistics at the bank, John Kelly, said the number of people in debt here is rising faster than any other euro zone country.
Mr Kelly also said the mortgage debt in Ireland between 2004 and 2006 increased at about three times the annual rate in the euro zone. He said the fact that a large number of mortgage holders are on a variable or tracker mortgages rates is positive.
The committee also heard that the number of people presenting themselves at the Money Advice Budgeting Service has increased substantially since 2006.
Ann Marie O'Connor from MABS said the amount of debt people are in is also increasing. She also said her organisation was concerned about the tactics the some debt collection agencies.
Mary O'Dea from the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority said a code was now in place to offer some protection for people in mortgage arrears. But that code was criticised as not going far enough by the representatives from the Free Legal Advice Centre.
