Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)

A slight amendment was made to the speech just beforehand.

The Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Act 2019 provides for the regulation of AHBs, for the purpose of supporting stronger governance and the financial viability of that sector.

Section 25 of the 2019 Act provides for existing AHBs, approved under section 6 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1992 to be deemed registered on 1 January 2022, subject to applying for registration within 12 months for AHBs providing or managing 300 or more dwellings; two years for AHBs providing or managing between 50 and 300 dwellings; and three years for AHBs providing or managing less than 50 dwellings. The Act was commenced on a phased basis and concerns were raised by the sector regarding the prescriptive nature of the eligibility criteria set out in section 25 of the Act.

Due to the eligibility criteria being overly prescriptive, very few AHBs would meet the criteria and as a result would not be in a position to register, causing cancellation of registration by the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority, AHBRA, by virtue of technically not meeting the registration requirements within the timeframe set out in the Act. In particular, a provision that "...all of its property, both real and personal, be applied solely in furtherance of its primary object or primary objects specified..." in the Act, means AHBs with constitutional objects outside of the primary object specified in the Act would no longer be allowed to use any property for those objects.

The timelines were extended through legislation in 2022 to allow time for consideration of the issue. The Department formulated an opinion that, in order to prevent AHBs falling out of registration due to a failure to meet the timelines set out in the 2019 Act, a more appropriate approach is to amend the Act to permanently register deemed AHBs - thus removing the need to meet the eligibility criteria - rather than require an active supply for registration before the end of the timelines. This approach is in line with the approach taken under charities regulation. The amendment is considered necessary to mitigate against the risk of AHBs that do not apply due to administrative or other constraints, or where approved housing bodies do not wish to be regulated or wish to adhere to AHBRA's standards and therefore chose not to apply to be registered, having their registrations cancelled and both the entity and their assets fall out of AHBRA's remit and powers.

As the Act further links AHBRA's powers directly to the constitutional objects in the AHB's constitution, and the above amendment will mean AHBs are no longer required to make constitutional changes nor apply for registration, further consequential amendments will rectify this so that the intended AHBRA powers come into effect regardless of whether an AHB changes its constitution by rather than referencing section 25, referencing directly a function of the AHB, namely, the alleviation of a housing need.

Overall, these amending provisions ensure existing AHBs are permanently deemed registered and remain under the regulator's remit with an active action to cancel registration required and that the regulator's powers apply to all AHBs on the register.

With regard to the other amendments proposed in the Bill, the new cost-rental sector in Ireland was given a statutory footing in Part 3 of the Affordable Housing Act 2021. This legislation introduced a new form of rental tenure targeted at middle income households above the eligibility thresholds for social housing supports, who were struggling with often acute affordability pressures in the private rental market. The introduction of the cost-based model represents a very significant contribution to the rental sector and was an action set out in the Government's Housing for All plan. Having been launched in 2021, cost-rental in Ireland while at an early stage of implementation is actually working, with almost 1,800 homes delivered nationwide to the end of quarter one of this year, and over 3,000 more approved. Building on this success, officials from my Department have been engaging with stakeholders, including our cost-rental delivery partners, to assess the lessons learned to date since the launch of cost rental. Arising from this process, a number of measures have been identified which I believe will help to further support the continued growth of this sector and strengthen its legislative framework.

As outlined in the Bill, it is now proposed to amend the Affordable Housing Act 2021 to provide for the following new elements: that providing for the Minister to prescribe eligibility requirements for different compositions of household; providing for allocation plans for particular cost-rental homes; and allocating cost-rental tenancies to tenants in situ.

By prescribing eligibility requirements for different compositions of households, this will allow for the introduction of individual household income eligibility requirements for shared households to reflect the variety of household formations which now exist and provide for two or more unrelated adults to access the benefits of a cost-rental tenancy and share the cost of the overall rent. Following the proposed amendment to the Act this will be done through regulations which I will bring forward as Minister in due course. This has been a very popular form of tenure. It is a new tenure that is growing across the country and this amendment in particular is something we have agreed with stakeholders and our delivery partners and will enable additional access for additional individuals and households to access cost-rental as this sector is growing.

The second amendment provides for cost-rental landlords to propose allocation plans for particular cost-rental homes. These are similar to the schemes of priority that are already provided under the Affordable Housing Act in respect of local authority affordable purchase homes. Under such plans, the process for allocating tenancies and the selection criteria that a cost-rental landlord may utilise when selecting potential tenants will be set out but will require ministerial approval before coming into effect. This is another measure that we have deemed appropriate to bring forward in consultation with our delivery partners and based on the experience we have had to date in delivering cost rental. The current system of allocation, a lottery to randomly select and sort all eligible applicants, will remain in place as a default option but I believe that providing scope for alternatives will allow for greater flexibility and, indeed, greater efficiency for cost-rental landlords tenanting an increasing number of homes.

The final amendment will provide for circumstances whereby a cost-rental dwelling can be provided to a tenant in situin a particular dwelling at the time of its designation under section 30 of the Act. Currently under the Act and associated regulations, a cost-rental dwelling must be allocated and leased in a transparent manner. That includes advertising the property. This cannot be done for practical reasons where there is a tenant in situ. Therefore, I am proposing to amend the Act to allow for such circumstances and for the designation of these homes as cost rental.

One further amendment will be added on Committee Stage in the Seanad to facilitate the capitalisation of the Land Development Agency, LDA, through an amendment of the National Treasury Management Agency Act 2014. This amendment was approved by the Cabinet today. I am confident that these important enabling amendments will continue to support the development of the sector as delivery increases in scale as well as providing access to cost rental to even more people.

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