Dr. Donal McManus:

To follow up on what Deputy Catherine Murphy and Deputy Dowds mentioned about the scaling up aspect of the sector and how this regulation can deliver, it was mentioned earlier on the voluntary code that there are probably four dimensions to assisting the sector in scaling up. One is certainly regulation and the others were new financial models which have emerged, building capacity and predictable funding streams. Bringing those together will provide the platform for upscaling.

In terms of what the sector can offer, a couple of years ago we conducted a survey of the larger bodies and their ambition was to deliver 5,000 homes over three years. That is with private finance. The context should be borne in mind. Many other countries brought in private finance 30 years ago, and it took almost 30 years for that to be a major issue for delivering social housing. We are doing it in five years. We are trying to introduce regulation and to have funding for private finance at the same time, so a few things must come together. It is those four elements, including policy co-ordination, financial models and building capacity. Building capacity is related to the land supply. Land supply is another element the sector needs in terms of delivery.

There is ambition in the sector, especially for the larger bodies that want to supply more housing. They have targets for what they wish to deliver. We believe the sector has much more to provide over the next five and ten years. Private finance does not just manifest itself in housing over a couple of years. If we are looking at ten years as a life cycle, we believe the sector will move from being very much dependent on the public sector for 100% finance into private finance, but we must have the other elements in place as well.

With regard to the smaller, tier 1, bodies, we have been working with some of them to build up their capacity in the regulation process as well. Bear in mind that three or four elements of regulation were introduced in the last couple of years, such as the charities regulation and the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, and HSE regulation. This has come on the back of a number of issues.

In terms of the landlord-tenant relationship, it is probably better to separate the regulation of the organisation rather than the landlords and tenants. Tenants and landlords have their own rights to seek remedies. Certainly for the future we see regulation as the key element of the four elements to assist the sector and build the confidence of investors. Over the last year we have found that the single biggest question from investors is whether the sector is regulated. Investors such as the European Investment Bank with the Housing Finance Agency, a number of private banks and a number of bodies in the capital markets see regulation as a very useful tool to build up confidence for them. That will certainly continue.

The four elements I mentioned, working together, will help to upscale the sector over the coming years.