Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will respond to the Senators as best I can. Senator Mark Daly asked about a regulatory impact assessment, RIA. One was done in 2015 and was published during the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. Obviously, there has been a time lag between then and this point, but in the interim we were beefing up the voluntary regulator in the Housing Agency. That important preliminary work means that, once we pass this Bill, we can move quickly to having an official regulator in place, given that the regulator is already up and running in many respects.

Senator Coffey mentioned the Bill's support for the housing body sector. When we talk about regulation, it is not just all stick. There is a carrot as well. This legislation is there to help those housing bodies that may not be as up to speed with regulations, governance and standards as others to get to that position and improve certain aspects of their performance in a way that is not overly onerous on them. To take up the Senator's point, we must recognise that many of the small housing bodies have volunteers who are putting in their own time. With every extra form we ask them to fill out, we take up an extra hour of their time that might be better spent doing something else for their respective tenants. In every regulation we introduce, we must find a balance.

The Senator also spoke about Mr. Simon Brooke of the Clúid Housing Association. The Dáil had a chance to speak about Mr. Brooke last week and note his passing. He is deeply missed by everyone he worked with, not just in Clúid, but in the wider ecosystem of housing in which we are all involved. Mr. Brooke talked about great homes. That is an important thing that we are now seeing in housing policy. It is not just a question of throwing up any old house or block of houses. The homes that we are building are the best that are being built in the State at the moment. I have visited many of them - public housing and private housing, there is no difference. Nor should there be. In many instances, the social housing is better because it has better performing energy, heating and ventilation systems owing to the needs of the people moving into those homes. It is important that we have that hardwired into our future housing policy.

The Senator from Sinn Féin lamented the fact that we were not regulating local authorities in this Bill. While local authority provision of housing is social housing for people coming off the housing list, it is a different mechanism of funding, oversight and governance. As such, it would not be appropriate to have the regulator for housing bodies over the local authorities. Where standards are concerned, these are the best homes ever built by the State.

It is one thing for Sinn Féin to come to the Chamber and talk about the great work that housing bodies do, but when we debate the provision of social housing, Sinn Féin refuses time and again to count social housing homes that are delivered by housing bodies. For some reason, it refuses to recognise them in the official numbers. I cannot understand it. The Iveagh Trust has been building social housing homes since before the existence of this State. Many housing bodies build fantastic homes, including homes for people with particular needs that the local authority may not be best suited to delivering whereas the housing body has been doing it for decades. Why would we not count those homes? It is part of the hypocrisy that we see in the housing debate that people will say one thing and do another.

I recognise the contribution that Senator Kelleher has made, not just to this debate, but to people's housing needs. She is right, in that this is not just about the big tier 3s, the housing bodies that are in the Housing Alliance.They are fantastic in what they do and they have big plans and vision. I fully support that. I know some of the smaller ones in my constituency and they are meeting very particular needs. They must be with us too. They do the smaller and more specific stuff that has a real impact on families. These are the tier 1 and tier 2 bodies.

When we look at the number of housing bodies that we think are inactive, we hope that, through some work, some of the smaller bodies will come together where it makes sense for them to do so. That has already happened in my constituency, where a couple of smaller housing bodies formed decades ago felt that they some of their volunteers were coming to the end of their ability as a result of their age. Those bodies were happy to amalgamate. That has happened. We are not trying to force anybody into that position. Where a smaller housing body needs help, it will, as Senator Coffey stated, will be provided.

The memorandums of understanding between this new regulator and the regulators already in existence are very important. Nobody should be duplicating work or demands on housing bodies. At the same time, nobody should be missing anything and there cannot be a gap that allows something to fall between the two regulators. The memorandums of understanding are very important in that regard.

The measure relating to the recognition of special accommodation needs was not being put in the appropriate part of the legislation. It may not be appropriate to the legislation. One of the inherent reasons for a housing body to exist is to meet those particular needs. It is a good definition and I gave a commitment to try to find a place in which to put it in other legislation. In doing so, we could all point to what we mean when we speak about certain special needs in housing being met. There must be consultation on the strategy statement but we must ensure the independence of the regulator. It must be independent in its functions.

We debated the merits of an interim report on Committee Stage in the Dáil. We must absolutely ensure that there is a process in place and that person's good name can be protected. We can imagine a position whereby an allegation might be made against a housing body regarding improper financial or governance conduct. The benefit of an interim report is that if the report is done in a phased way, it may be possible to say at an earlier point that there is no improper financial conduct, thus helping to clear a name earlier and before the work is finished on the governance aspect. All of these matters will be handled with due care so no information will enter the public domain that is not meant to do so without the housing bodies having the right to answer calls being put to them. That is important. I definitely saw a space whereby an interim report might help rather than give the wrong impression to the public about a housing body before it had a right to respond.

There was mention of the cancellation and deregistering of housing bodies. In part, this comes from the amendment I accepted that within 12 months a report will be produced in this regard. We will likely see a case where a housing body might, for whatever reason, need to be deregistered or have its assets transferred. We must put the protection of tenants at the centre of that. The regulator would have the power to intervene with another housing body and transfer assets and responsibility in that regard. If a regulator cannot continue to regulate a housing body, it may still receive some funding from my Department through a local authority in order to keep tenants safe until we find a proper route for such assets under the housing body. The legislation provides for that by again putting the tenant at the centre of these issues. We do not want to find a tenant in a precarious position all of a sudden after a housing body gets into difficulty, leading to people getting hurt. It is what we are trying to avoid with the legislation in place and with some of the amendments brought forward.

Senator Lawlor referred to fees. We do not want this to be self-financing. The regulatory office cannot be self-financing. If there were fees, they would only cover part of the cost of regulation. We recognise there will be work to be done, particularly with smaller housing bodies, and we did not want to impose any additional or onerous costs on them. They have costs because of the annual registration of tenancies with the RTB and we did not want to hit them with something else. We removed section 11, which provided for fees in the future, but we have allowed for the charging of fees if an appeal is made or if a person is seeking a copy of the register.If there is to be fees for regulation in the future, they will have to be brought by way of an amendment in a future Bill. We have done that to safeguard housing bodies, to do with their finances, in the immediate future.

Yes, it will be possible for the Land Development Agency to work with a housing body to achieve the minimum 40% of social and affordable housing on the LDA landbanks. So there is nothing precluding them from doing that.

In terms of the Housing Agency, there are 16 staff working there at the moment.

On the voluntary code for regulation, I imagine they will transfer across to the full regulator. We will want to hire more staff on top of that and I would say at least five, if not ten, but that will be determined by the regulator as needs be. We have provided funding of about €2.25 million between now and 2021. That is for the next two years but the funding also covers some of this year to allow all of that work to be done in terms of getting the regulator up and running, and doing its first piece of work in terms of the automatic registration of existing housing bodies and then looking through the list of those that did not register under the voluntary code.

Senator Humphreys asked about maintenance and standards. What we are talking about are standards around governance, finance and management of the stock. He referred to issues of performance criteria for managing the stock. The regulator will set out standards after a period of consultation as to what good performance might look like. Then it will mandate for transparency in terms of the housing body reporting on those things. What we will not do in that space is step on the toes of the RTB. If there is an issue around the actual standard of the accommodation, for example, where the housing body's landlord is not meeting its responsibility as a landlord, the reference there for the tenant will be to the RTB. That will all be agreed with the memorandum of understanding between the AHB and the RTB. It is clear that we have a delineation between responsibilities but that is what will happen with the standards piece.

In terms of apartments and end-of-life, the points that have been raised are relevant to apartments in the private housing sector and what happens at the end-of-life point. There is a piece of work that needs to be done here. As I have mentioned before, and I think I mentioned this in the Seanad, we want to do something around this and see how best we can do it. This matter currently does not reside in my Department. I will engage with the Minister for Justice and Equality to see how we can go about putting in those protections for when one gets to later on in an apartment development's life when it might need a more serious amount of funding to bring it back up to a fit standard, but also where management companies have not put in place a sinking fund where they should have done so.

When it comes to a housing body, particularly the tier 3s, they are the developer but they are also the management company so it is a separate issue for them. One of the things that we have put in place in terms of what happens towards the end-of-life cycle is, obviously if a housing body ceases to meet the housing needs of people off the housing lists or starts to make a profit, then it no longer becomes a housing body. So a whole separate set of consequences come in for that housing body at that point in time.

I shall address the following to Senator Kelleher. There is an onus on the regulator to make sure that tenants do not find themselves in a position where they would be in that precarious position where the assets were about to transfer and they did not have somewhere to live. The powers are there for the regulator to deal with that. Section 53, in particular, contains the powers for the regulator to step in and protect tenants where needed.

Senator Mulherin mentioned the quality of new homes that are being built today.