Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In respect of amendment No. 3 and the second part of amendment No. 4, as has been explained at every stage of consideration of the Bill in the Houses, in accepting the amendments we would duplicate an existing provision in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. I will, therefore, not accept the amendments.
Section 13 of the 2009 Act provides that the capital moneys accruing to a housing authority from a number of sources, including the sale of dwellings under the old tenant purchase scheme provided for in the 1966 Act or the 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 the refurbishment or maintenance of existing houses or related purposes. Such provisions relate to local authorities' internal capital receipts.
Furthermore, section 34(a) of the 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, local authorities are required to submit an annual programme of works to be funded from 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 internal capital receipts funds to augment the revenue funding used to finance the funding, from their own resources, of the suite of grants for older people and people with a disability.
I cannot accept the first part of amendment No. 4 to the extent that it proposes to insert a new subsection (1A) into section 44 of the 2009 Act in what appears to be an attempt to extend the incremental purchase arrangements for newly built local authority and approved body houses in Part 3 of the 2009 Act to existing local authority and approved body housing. The proposed amendment is unnecessary in so far as it applies to a housing authority as it is already encompassed by the provisions in Part 3 of the Bill underpinning a purchase scheme for existing dwellings along incremental purchase lines.
In respect of extending purchase provisions to encompass existing approved housing bodies' stock, under the terms of the various funding schemes under which AHBs make accommodation available, they are the de factoowners of the properties and required to make them available for social renting for the duration of the mortgage or, as the case may be, the availability agreement. My Department cannot unilaterally make provision for their sale to tenants. Any such decision would have to involve the AHB and have regard to the mortgage on the property. In July 2013 my predecessor introduced a voluntary regulatory code for this sector as a precursor to a statutory regulatory framework to support the voluntary sector’s long-term growth. In February she appointed an interim regulatory committee to oversee implementation of the voluntary code and advise on the development of statutory regulation. Regulation is an important element in providing for 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 in this process.
Having regard to work under way on the regulation of the voluntary sector and the fact 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 - the Housing Act 2009 - I ask the Senators to withdraw their amendments.