Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

These amendments duplicate an existing enactment in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. Section 13 of the 2009 Act provides that capital moneys accruing to a housing authority from a number of sources, including the sale of a dwelling under the old tenant purchase scheme provided by the 1966 Act, or the two incremental purchase schemes provided for in the 2009 Act, will be ring-fenced in a separate account and, subject to the Minister’s prior approval, used for the provision of housing or for the refurbishment or maintenance of existing houses, or related purposes. Such provisions refer to a local authority’s internal capital receipts. Furthermore, section 34(a) of this Bill amends section 13 of the 2009 Act to provide that moneys accruing from the sale of a dwelling under Part 3 of the Bill will also be subject to the provisions of section 13.

Since 2007, local authorities have had delegated sanction to use their internal capital receipts for housing purposes, subject to certain terms and conditions. Under these procedures authorities are required to submit an annual programme of works to be funded by their internal capital receipts, primarily for the planned maintenance and improvement of their existing housing stock, for approval by my Department. It has also been agreed that local authorities can use their ICR funds to augment and oversee the implication of the voluntary code and to advise on the development of statutory regulation.

Regulation is an important element in providing the conditions necessary for the growth and development of the sector. Financing that growth is equally important and the question of how best to utilise the existing asset base, including the option of selling existing stock to tenants, is a factor to be considered under this particular process.

In the context of work under way regarding the regulation of the voluntary sector and that the principle of what is proposed in respect of the use of capital moneys accruing to local authorities from sales is already provided for in primary legislation, that is, the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, I suggest the two amendments are unnecessary because they are duplicating provisions already in place.