Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No. 2046B from Mr. Ray Mitchell relates to the Hannaway report on the national human resource division. The correspondence states:

The Human Resources Division contacted Mr. Conor Hannaway who was involved in the process, and he has advised that the intervention was an organisation development initiative which resulted in a briefing (set of presentation slides, which were provided to the Committee) which was shared with management and staff to help address the particular situation in 2006 at the Estates Office in Kilmainham. No formal report or minutes was required or prepared as a result of the intervention.

While there was a briefing, I do not recall what the presentation in Kilmainham was called. Mr. Mitchell has given us the best information he has. He has said that there was no formal report, minutes or documents from that presentation. We will note and publish this. If anyone here would like to take it up directly, he or she is free to do so. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. 2047 from Mr. David Feeney, chief operations officer at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, provides information requested by the committee on Project Ireland 2040. This correspondence was noted and published at the last meeting but it was not in time for our normal correspondence list. We had it at the previous meeting. We are formally noting and publishing it now. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. 2050 from Ms Rosalind Carroll, director at the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, is on the single public service pension scheme. This is a follow-up letter. Members will be pleased to know that when the committee does its periodic report, if staff see there is a gap in the information we have not been provided with, they go back to get an update. This correspondence deals with the single public service pension scheme and the cost to the RTB. The committee dealt with those issues specifically in our report and we had a chart on it. That was fully dealt with in the report we published two weeks ago. This will be noted and published.

No. 2051 is from Dr. Mary Lee Rhodes, head of regulation with the interim regulatory committee at the Housing Agency. This regulation office is a voluntary body - not statutory - that is not established yet. The correspondence covers the overall staffing levels in approved housing bodies, AHBs, including the numbers of staff dealing with housing and accommodation and those providing support services; details regarding how many of the 260 AHBs who have signed up to the voluntary code have ensured their financial statements are published and audited within nine months of year end; and the number of AHBs that do not meet the Companies Registration Office requirement for the publication of accounts.

We will discuss the next correspondence with this because it is on the same issue. No. 2052 from Dr. Donal McManus, chief executive officer with the Irish Council for Social Housing, provides details regarding security of tenure for clients in AHBs, including life tenure and any reduction in tenure in properties acquired under the NAMA scheme; overall staffing levels; details on the payment and availability scheme; information on local property tax paid by AHBs, paid at the minimum rate of €90 or thereabouts, which is the first step on the ladder; and a note on the number of new builds delivered by the sector. There are a few points here. We had the Irish Council for Social Housing before the committee because we are dealing with housing. We have had three meetings on the housing issue and we will bring it to a conclusion soon. With regard to the staffing numbers in AHBs, I am having trouble reconciling the two letters, one of which is from the regulatory office stating there are 10,067 staff and the other stating 1,236 staff are employed directly in the provision of housing. This implies that the other staff are either involved in administration or in providing care and support services for people in that area.

The letter from the Irish Council for Social Housing, if I am reading it right, suggests that the overall number of staff is 4,600 and the number of volunteers is 5,922. I am just not sure how these two letters gel.