€173,599 was owed to Kerry County Council in housing loan arrears at the end of last year.
The local authority’s 2018 annual report states it had a collection rate of 85% on housing loan accounts, and it’s monitoring its 380 customers for arrears.
Kerry County Council received 125 applications last year for the new Rebuilding Ireland Homeloan, which provides mortgages to first-time buyers who have been refused a mortgage or were offered insufficient finance by banks.
As of the end of last year, the council had approved 44 such loans to the value of €5.3 million, but only six were drawn down with a total value of €812,600.