Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Mr. Lemass. I call Deputy O'Brien.

On his last point, is Mr. Lemass saying the 500 plus will all be deemed registered on the date, whether they have actually engaged or not? I have a more general question. I have heard before at a committee that there is a breakdown of the AHBs. Mr. Lemass mentioned, in response to Senator Kelleher, a type of tiered regulation, along the lines of the Financial Regulator, where insurance brokers have a tiered regulation based on their size. Has Mr. Lemass looked at that? Is he giving a different category of approval, for want of a better phrase? We have AHBs which do not have properties. They are not paper AHBs but how are we going to deal with them?

I would support Mr. Lemass in trying to bring this legislation in as promptly as possible. The timeframe he gave was before Christmas, and I welcome that. When is he looking to publish the Government amendments and what type of data is he looking at in terms of bringing it to Committee Stage? Mr. Lemass might have a look at that.

I want to ask about the appointment of the board. The board of members will consist of between five and 11 members. I have looked through the explanatory memorandum. In regard to the type of people who will be appointed, it says they are all ministerial appointees. From what sectors will they be drawn? I am particularly thinking of tenant advocates or tenants themselves, or a tenant representative. Has that been thought about?

I refer to the disability sector, which is crucially important. The committee has heard about the difficulties people with disabilities have in accessing housing and the longer waiting times. There has been a good initiative at local authority level in relation to the housing disability committees - the implementation committees in local authorities. Not all of them have yet met. We asked for an update on that to see how the local authorities are getting on. Maybe Mr. Lemass could enlighten us on the thinking in the Department on which sectors would form part of that board to make sure it is representative of the sector and those who are living in approved housing bodies. That is the main area.

I refer to the inspection, appointing inspectors, standards and that type of thing. Does Mr. Lemass see any type of interaction with the RTB or the local authorities? There may be an issue with standards and the regulator will have the right to appoint inspectors. Who will those inspectors be? Would Mr. Lemass see that as being the local authorities or what is the view there?

A very basic question is on whether we have gone down the line in relation to resourcing. We know the number of board members. The regulator will appoint the chief executive. What type of resources will the office have staff-wise? I know it will be organic and will grow with the sector, but does Mr. Lemass have an initial plan and an initial cost? With the establishment of the office and as it moves into this area, do we have an idea of the cost of this?

I assume the regulator would fall under this committee and that there would be no restrictions vis-à-vis parliamentary questions, freedom of information, FOI, and all those types of things should Deputies and Senators wish to engage because AHBs are becoming a larger part of our housing sector and will continue to grow.