Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Lemass for his presentation and wish him luck with his optimism about getting this through by Christmas. It started in the House in 2015. Everybody here welcomes the legislation and agrees that it is necessary. Most of my questions have been asked. Some of the issues are concerns more than anything else with regard to regulation and the smaller approved housing bodies. Initially approved housing bodies were established to deal with vulnerable people in society. Now they are providing mainstream social housing. I welcome the comment that some of the legislation is proportional. There are three tiers of AHBs so perhaps the regulation will tie into the different tier strands.

I welcome this regulation and am not questioning it, but I must return to the on and off balance sheet problem the State has. AHBs remain on balance sheet.

They will not be able to deliver the capacity of housing that is needed until we get them off balance sheet. Therefore, it may as well be a local authority if it is on balance sheet. I wonder if some of this regulation could be applied to local authority housing as well. It would be useful if the Department would comment on that.

The witnesses mentioned nominations and allocations and they said it is within the regulation and the local authority still has an input. I know this is an issue that brings us back to the question of being on balance sheet or off balance sheet again. These were more of the criteria that had an impact in driving the approved housing bodies on balance sheet. Does the Department foresee that in the future the local authority would ever be removed from those nominations and allocations or that the local authority would be held to statute in that process?