Mr. Liam Hanrahan:

In terms of CAS and where it is at, we will hopefully have a figure for the end of 2023, which will be between 270 and 300 CAS units delivered by the sector in 2023. The section 39 groups, as was said, have moved into forming their own AHBs and there is now independent AHB regulation. Going through that process has taken significant time, as well as change to the governance models of the section 39s and the AHBs. With that regulation came the need for technical support. Housing for All and local authorities have now been able to put in place engineers who can offer that support through technical services or CAS.

With regard to the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, review, AHBs in particular access CALF much more for schemes of significant size or for CALF turnkey projects. We have completed the CALF review and the AHBs are now back working on CALF applications with our engineers. They are beginning to look at those bigger schemes. We find that they have moved away slightly from CAS to CALF as they move from section 39 to AHBs because it has allowed them to plan for more than one house. It has allowed them to plan for a larger community, integrated living within a new estate or indeed in purchasing a turnkey estate where there may be five or ten houses for people with disabilities, five or ten houses for older people and the rest of the properties may be put aside for general allocation under the priority scheme on letting.

We are beginning to see significant movement in that direction. As Ms Farrelly pointed out, the properties becoming available that are suitable for CAS in many cases are not out there, namely, larger properties with four or five bedrooms and two or three bathrooms. By the time those houses are purchased and adapted to get them back out into the market, the cost can be prohibitive versus going in with an AHB to purposely design four or five units within the estate using the CALF funding model or indeed with local authorities, which we have done in Galway. We partnered up with the HSE and section 39 agencies to deliver community housing improvement programme, CHIP, social housing, delivered by Galway County Council for clients who up till now would have been holding on for CAS-funded properties. We are now designing and putting those houses into our estate and they are going in through the housing disability steering group with the supports that the HSE put in place. We had a good example of that with the HSE in Clifden recently. There is a significant move on from that CAS one-offs into CALF, particularly after the CALF review, but it also coincides with section 39 organisations moving more into the AHB sector and the technical know-how in the AHB sector has ramped up significantly in the past couple of years as well.