Mr. Paul Lemass:

I thank Senator Kelleher for those questions. I will try to take them as much as possible in the order that they were asked but there might be a bit of an overlap. On the question of standards, the three broad areas of standards that are currently in operation in the voluntary system are a governance standard, a financial standard and a performance standard, and the provisions of the Bill provide for the regulator to adopt new standards, which frankly I would expect to be broadly in line. The fact that we have had a voluntary system for five years means that there would be a very gradual transition from where we are now to a statutory system.

The way we deal with the individual AHBs is that they are classified according to three tiers, where tier three is the largest 19, tier two is the mid-ranking ones and tier one is the smaller ones. At present, the compliance requirements of the voluntary system are graduated. The more money, the more growth plans one has, the more the compliance burden is on one. The Bill provides that one can treat different categories or groupings in a similar manner, so there is an intention that smaller AHBs will not have the same burden as the larger ones in terms of the performance, financial and governance standards.

On the ability to respond, it is absolutely our intention that this regulation will enhance the sector's ability to respond. The experience would show that well-regulated sectors attract investment more easily and there is generally a higher level of public confidence when a sector is well regulated. The sector is already responding very well to the housing challenge, and the expectation is that it will do more and more.

As regards the provision of fees, we have one or two amendments in development around section 35(5), where we would propose, subject to the Minister's approval, to delete the provision for an annual registration fee that is contained therein. There are other provisions for fees. Part of them are around where somebody requests a report and where there might be a cost associated with producing a report and putting a fee on that.