Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to move on to another issue, which was raised last week relating to approved housing bodies. We were told that the situation is being looked at. There are three tiers to AHBs. Bigger ones tend to be professionally managed while the smaller ones are often managed by volunteers. Typically, the local authority provides the land, the State provides the capital to build and a maintenance amount is allocated to the AHBs of the mortgage. Once the mortgage is redeemed, the ownership reverts to the AHB, so they are in private ownership. AHBs are managed under the Charities Regulator, but they could change from being a charity, or a company limited by guarantee. The Department had stated it was looking at a particular situation, and established an unencumbered units working group. That relates to the approved housing bodies that no longer have a mortgage. Where is that at? What are the terms of reference? How many units are involved in that particular working group?