Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister is aware, yesterday on Second Stage I indicated that I am not opposed to the Bill in principle, but I raised a concern about whether it could lead to involuntary sharing of accommodation after an initial period of sharing. Is that something the Minister looked at or considered during the drafting and consideration of this section? If not, is it something he will give serious consideration to prior to the enactment of the Bill? While I have no issue at all with two people being regarded as two separate households for the purposes of sharing, the Minister can see the problem that might arise five, six or seven years later when one wants to move out and a voluntary sharing arrangement could become involuntary sharing. In that case, we would have a separate set of problems to address.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Ó Broin. We did discuss this matter. I welcome the support for the Bill. We know that in the instance of multiple occupancy, cost-rental tenants derive a number of benefits such as security of tenure, below-market rents and high-quality housing. However, in some cases it is envisaged that incomes could rise and, as individual circumstances change, there may be opportunities to move on to different accommodation situations, to other cost rental in the private market or to purchase a home. We discussed this with stakeholders in the AHBs. If two households or individuals apply for a property but are two separate individuals, I do not envisage a situation where someone would be stuck in an arrangement.

Deputy Ó Broin mentioned a valid point yesterday about the transfers between AHBs and social housing. As the cost-rental housing stock increases, we may have a situation where someone wants to move out to buy a house. They will be treated as two distinct entities sharing the one property. They are not coterminous in that sense and one person will not be stuck with the other.

Bearing that in mind, we will work through the regulations in that regard. People's lives and circumstances change and they might not wish to continue with an arrangement. They will have the normal notice periods. The replacement of tenants in a cost-rental lease would happen with the landlord's consent, but in order to regulate matters and ensure that eligibility criteria are not circumvented, the Minister may prescribe how a landlord can give his or her consent to the removal or replacement of tenants or their addition to a tenancy contract. Again, we would do that in regulations. The required regulations in respect of this will be drafted in the coming months.

We have consulted on this as well. This has been an ask of our cost-rental partners. When we are making multiple occupancy a reality, we will have regulations to underpin that. As part of the process, we will be working with providers to draw upon their expertise in drafting the regulations, as well as exploring mechanisms to facilitate transfers - for argument's sake, right-sizing within and between cost-rental homes.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This is one of the sections of the Bill I was referring to yesterday when I said it would have been preferable if this had gone through the ordinary legislative process. If I may, I will take a second to highlight the particular concern. Why have cost rental landlords like the LDA asked for this provision? It is something they have been very open about in their conversations with many of us, and there is no criticism of them for asking. The first reason is that a single-person household currently cannot actually afford or get access to a one-bedroom cost rental unit. The cost of the units is more than a third of the disposable income of an entry-level nurse, for example. They have this dilemma because the one-bedroom units which are really designed for a single-person household are not affordable under the rules of the scheme. By allowing two single-person households to be treated separately for a two-bedroom unit, and having a slightly higher combined income threshold because they are both assessed separately, it facilitates that. That is the logic. Where involuntary sharing comes in is that, while this is fine as a short-term arrangement for a number of years, that single person may end up with a partner. They may want to move into two-bedroom cost rental accommodation of their own, maybe they want to have children. The difficulty is that it might not be possible because of the income. It is not that anybody is being forced into involuntary sharing, but it could become a reality.

This may be an area in which we will table an amendment in the Seanad. I think the deadline for doing so is Friday. As the Minister moves from the Bill into the regulations, I ask him to really give some thought to this. A short-term solution to one problem, that a single person cannot afford a one-bedroom cost rental, could be a longer term problem. I will deal with the issue around transfers when we get to the relevant section. I am genuinely concerned that rather than looking at how we can bring down the cost of those one-bedroom units, we are creating potential other problems. Of course, people might want to share. They might not want a one-bedroom unit and I think it is appropriate. In the Minister's response, can he indicate if he has decided what the income threshold will be for those separate households? Is there an upper limit above which it will not go? Would this change facilitate two couples being treated as two separate households seeking to rent a two-bedroom cost rental, rather than just two singles, if the couples were within the income limits the Minister sets? Is it restricted to two persons within a two-bedroom unit?

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I have met cost rental tenants, single individuals, who have rented cost rental properties on their own. This mechanism is not brought in as a cost reduction measure for the AHB partners or indeed the LDA partners. The Deputy will have a view on that. I will just say it is not. As the Deputy has outlined already, at different times of their lives, people may want to share. Right now, the situation is that if a single person wants to share with another single person, and they are not a family unit, they cannot do that. It gives that other person the same security and security of tenure. What we are looking at here is mainly for singles. I do not envisage a situation of two family groups, for argument's sake, such as a couple and another couple, in that instance. The Deputy will be at the Oireachtas joint committee tomorrow, where this can be teased out further. The income threshold for somebody who is sharing, this multi-occupancy tenancy, has not been decided upon yet. It will be set out within the regulations. I assure the Deputy that this is really to respond to our delivery partners but also, very importantly, prospective tenants who want to share and who are not family units. We will work around the transfer piece that I mentioned already, how one would transfer out of one property and into another.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I have a question for the Minister as well. He seems to be doing a lot of work in cost rental and affordable homes for tenants. It does not seem to be manifesting itself in Kerry. The question I have to ask the Minister is about tenant purchase schemes, people who wish to purchase their own local authority house. They cannot purchase it if the house was built after 2015. That is what is happening in Kerry. The other thing we are looking for is that first-time buyers qualify for the first-time buyer's grant for a second-hand house that has been lived in before. It does not make sense to be denying people the chance to purchase a local authority house while trying to help people with this affordable scheme to buy a house. We cannot understand it. I am asking the Minister to make sense of it for me, please.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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It is an important issue but we are dealing with section 15.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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While it is a relevant point, it is not relevant to the legislation or indeed the section we are dealing with.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have an hour for this debate.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Through the Chair, this is not oral questions. We are dealing with important legislation here. A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, we can go down the road of me answering questions on every aspect of housing policy. Just to be fair to Deputy Healy-Rae on this, in respect of tenant purchase schemes through local authorities, they exist and are in place right now. The help to buy grant is a matter for Revenue. It is a grant that I support but it is an activation measure that relates to new properties. There is no prohibition on a tenant purchasing their local authority home if they meet the criteria that are set out. I also introduced a requirement that the home must be replaced by the local authority. We want to build up our housing stock; we do not want to just sell it out the other side. We are talking about more social homes. A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I am conscious that we are straying outside of the section. Just to be courteous to Deputy Healy-Rae, I have answered his question. If he wants to write to me separately, he can do so. We have oral questions coming up the week after next on housing.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Will we all be here?

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is if we will be here.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Of course we will. Bígí cinnte faoi sin.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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If the Minister says we will be here, we will be here.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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You may not be aware that the restriction is there for houses built after 2015. They are not allowed to buy them.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Go raibh maith agat. I have been lenient on that. Section 15 has been debated.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will not stop on each of these sections but I would like to ask a couple of questions further to my comments yesterday around the allocation scheme. I appreciate there is a lot of work to do on this with respect to the regulations. Subject, of course, to the Oireachtas still being sitting, perhaps there could be some mechanism for the Oireachtas joint committee to be consulted even informally on that, be it through a private briefing or committee meeting. As the Minister knows, many of us have experience of how allocation schemes and transfer schemes work for social housing. Would the Minister be willing to give a commitment in that regard? I am genuinely concerned and want to put it on record here again, notwithstanding that it is a good thing that we are moving towards having allocation schemes, that this could lead to a proliferation of different types of schemes, not just for different cost rental landlords but even within a single cost rental landlord across different schemes. I am cautioning against too much complexity which would have to be unwound after the fact. In the Tuath Housing cost rental units in my constituency, in Kilcarbery, we are already seeing tenants who are in exactly the same units paying significantly different rents for exactly the same properties, as the units were delivered in phase 1 and phase 2 of Kilcarbery Grange. We also need to avoid having very different allocation schemes or transfer arrangements if we put one in place in the same way. I urge the Minister to include in his regulations a facility for transfers and mutual transfers not just within a particular cost rental landlord but across cost rental units, given that the number in place at present is still small.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Tomorrow's meeting of the Oireachtas joint committee will be important as well. The Deputy will be able to look in further detail and ask further questions. I appreciate that he asked questions on Second Stage as well. This is the evolution of cost rental, a model that did not exist here less than three years ago. As we build up that scale, we will consider what might be a scheme of priorities or allocation plans. For argument's sake, there has been discussion around key workers. We could take developments that might be happening on hospital grounds. I have met certain hospitals that are interested in looking at forms of cost rental for their own staff. It would make sense in that instance.

Where, say, a hospital trust with an AHB supported by us wishes to develop a facility on a cost-rental basis, it will be allowed to propose a scheme of priorities or an allocation plan that would be within the bounds of what we set out or what is permissible by the Minister of the day and would require that approval.

On the area of transfers, I agree. More than 1,800 cost-rental tenancies are in place, about 3,000 others have been approved and there will be a significant number of approvals over the coming weeks as well. As the capacity and scale of cost rental builds up, in certain areas people may look to transfer within that, and that is something we will absolutely look at. I give a commitment that I will be more than happy to consider any input the joint committee and its members who are interested can give towards the preparation of the draft regulations. All of us have experience, not just in our own areas but throughout the country, of cost-rental schemes that are in place. As we build that capacity, we will see how it works on the ground. The measures we have brought in are informed by experience we have had on the ground and will help the cost-rental sector evolve and mature, which is what we want, but I am certainly open to input in that regard.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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On cost rental, 27 homes are planned for Cork city in 2024 and none for next year. Cork City Council hit its target earlier than probably most local authorities, but the problem is that the targets for cost rental in Cork were so low that the council will finish them this year and there are none in the pipeline. I have issues with cost rental in Cork because I do not think it is as affordable as it should be. The concept of cost rental is very good and has broad support in the House, but I want cost rental that is truly affordable, with targets and figures set out for each local authority that will make a difference.

I was contacted by a couple last week who had been taken off the social housing list, and I dealt with a woman on Monday who is a healthcare worker earning €42,000 a year. For a single person to qualify for social housing in Cork, the limit is €40,000, so she is €2,000 over it. There is no cost rental in Cork that she can go to and she is worried she is going to be made homeless. This is a lady of 57 years of age who works with children for a contractor that works with Tusla. She is at risk of becoming homeless because we are not delivering enough affordable or cost-rental properties in Cork, even if the idea of cost rental is good. When I spoke to this lady about cost rental being a possibility for her, she said she could not afford €900 or €1,000 a month, even though she earns €42,000 a year. She just could not do that. For cost rental, we have to look at affordability and the targets because they are too low.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Members for their input. This is important legislation, which we debated on Second Stage as well. It will be appreciated by the approved housing body sector to deal with the AHBRA registration issue, and to legislate for the cost-rental tenant in situ scheme and for changes we have just discussed with regard to cost rental as the sector continues to grow throughout the country. I appreciate the constructive nature of the engagement. I know that the Oireachtas joint committee will have further discussions tomorrow following the passing of the Bill in the Dáil. I again give my commitment that I will certainly work with colleagues on the regulations we have discussed here, and I seek input from colleagues in that regard.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Does anyone else wish to contribute?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No. We are a very reasonable bunch of people on this side of the House.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Watch that change.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Bill will be sent to the Seanad.