TDs will have no power to change the Central Bank's new rules on mortgage lending.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan told the Dáil today that the new regulations will be legally binding as soon as they are finalised by the Central Bank.

Many banks are already applying the rules ahead of their official introduction within the next few weeks.

“They’ll come into effect as soon as the Central Bank promulgates the regulations and my responsibility then is to bring the promulgated regulations to the House by placing in the Oireachtas library,” Mr Noonan said.

“They’re law before they come in here, we don’t have a function in enacting them,” he added.