Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being here. Unfortunately, I had to step out of the meeting as I had to deal with an item in the Seanad. I do not have the advantage of knowing the questions that were asked but I take it from the comments of the two Senators present that securing meaningful engagement with the sector is an issue. When I attend Oireachtas joint committees, I tend to notify agencies or relevant people that a particular subject is being raised. Needless to say, I have spoken to a number of approved housing bodies and the common issue that came across consistently was their lack of meaningful engagement on what they read about this legislation, the reclassification process, the role of EUROSTAT and the impact of that on or off balance sheet. I believe there are too many approved housing bodies. Can Mr. Lemass confirm how many are in existence? I have heard the crazy figure that there may be up to 500 but that may not be true. He might be able enlighten us on the number of approved housing bodies. Some of them are very small and some are very big. Some of them are driving the process and some are clustered in groups.

The reform of approved housing bodies may be a debate for another day. It is no secret that the Minister and the Government are keen to see rationalisation, organisation and structure around this area. I am not in the business of supporting a large number of approved housing bodies with plush offices and top chief executives making loads of money. I am not saying they are all like that but there is a perception that many people are reinventing the wheel and that we are all over the place in this area. Questions are being asked of elected members who have mandates and are part of councils, which are housing and planning authorities that have many other functions. They are close to the ground in terms of the administration of their respective housing lists. The approved housing bodies take tenants from the social housing approved lists. That is extremely important to ensure transparency.

There are a whole load of issues about reforming the sector which may not be part of today's deliberations so I want to point that out but I also want to acknowledge there are very good and successful approved housing bodies. My understanding is the Government is keen to use AHBs as a major source of housing and in the provision of social housing. There is always a conflict with what the local authorities are meant to be doing. We know from looking at land inventories that there are substantial public lands in the ownership of these housing authorities and we know there is a demand for housing. One has to ask why we cannot harness all that energy and do it? Why are we reinventing the wheel and handing so much of this direct build of social housing to authorities and organisations outside local authorities? I just want to say that because it is important. The Department might tell us how many approved housing bodies there are.

I refer to the differentials system. Mr. Lemass can correct me if I am wrong but he suggested there might be a two-tier differential rent within the HAP system. Maybe that is being considered but Mr. Lemass might enlighten us on that. I appeal to the Department to have more engagement with the approved housing bodies. I accept there are clusters and maybe the Department is engaging with the groups - and they are not engaging down - but that is a big issue and it is a recurring theme here today.

Can the Department detail the interactions with EUROSTAT on getting AHBs off the balance sheet? We do not have all the documentation. I am not suggesting the Department should go back and take its filing cabinets apart and come back here with a busload of stuff but what is the Department's engagement with that? What is its preferred option? We need to know what the Department's preferred option is. We do not want to hear that the Department will wait and see wherever the dice falls. What is the Department's preferred option in an ideal world?

We need to reassure people that with overruns on the children's hospital and a whole load of other overruns, the financial difficulties the State will face post Brexit and all the other financial challenges the State faces, this will not impact the level of delivery expected in Rebuilding Ireland and beyond, depending on the reclassification. I am a bit tired of hearing about delivering targets for Rebuilding Ireland. I want us to be ambitious to get way over the objectives, commitments and targets we have set in Rebuilding Ireland. I thank our guests from the Department for coming in.