Mr. Cian Ó Lionáin:

Deputies Bannon and Nash raised issue of the size of the sector. It is important to be upfront about the great diversity in the sector. At the peak, there were 705 listed approved housing bodies but many of these were inactive. One of the recommendations of the Grant Thornton report, referred to by Deputy Bannon, was that the Department should take a clinical view of who is active and who is not. In the past year or so we have begun a process of de-listing bodies which may have been established for good reason but, for one reason or another, whose projects never got off the ground. As a result, these approved housing bodies have gone nowhere or fallen apart and therefore we de-listed them. At the moment we have boiled that list down from 705 to approximately 570. We estimate that there are fewer than 500 active bodies in the country. They range remarkably in size and capacity, from organisations that may only have five units under management to organisations such as the Clúid Housing Association, which is before the committee today, and Respond, which have 5,000 units each.

In designing the code we have formulated a system of regulation that is proportionate to the size of the organisation. A small approved housing body with fewer than 50 units is placed in tier 1. For these bodies regulation will be relatively light and built on the requirements imposed already under company law and so on. Tier 2 is made up of mid-sized bodies. Tier 3 is made up of larger organisations with more than 300 units which have significant development ability. At the moment in Ireland we reckon there are only approximately ten or perhaps fewer bodies of that size. It is a challenge for the overall sector to generate more bodies of that size and to develop the necessary scale to deliver.

Reference was made to consolidating the sector. The Department and the Minister are fully cognisant of the great work that has been done by the smaller approved housing bodies. I do not believe we will ever be in a position where we will be telling people that they must merge because it would be utterly disrespectful to what they have done on a community and voluntary basis. However, there is considerable benefit in those organisations at the very least collaborating. There is a good model in County Limerick, where a dozen small approved housing bodies have come together and pooled the scarce resources they have to employ a full-time person to do their administration, organise contracts and so on. Many organisations share the same theme, for example, those which work in a special care area, and there is definite potential in collaborating. Over time who is to say that those collaborations could become alliances or mergers? However, we are not prescriptive on that.

Senator Keane asked about how the system can help the sector to grow in size. There are several things we can do in this regard, in particular in terms of the regulation of tenancies. There is a system of charging that the Private Residential Tenancies Board currently imposes on private landlords. We have come up with a suite of tailored prices for the sector such that those who register within the first 12 months will get significant discounts. We have made other adjustments to match the nature of tenancies in the sector. We are working actively with the representative organisations, including the Irish Council for Social Housing, which has been referred to. The council represents the majority of approved housing bodies. There is also NABCO, which represents co-operative housing. It is smaller in scale but no less important. We are working with these organisations to see how they and the Department can help, particularly in the case of smaller approved housing bodies which may be daunted by the scale of the regulatory task.

There is certainly a role for local authorities to help in this process. Senator Keane rightly remarked that it would be a sin to lose all the expertise . We have spoken to several directors of housing in local authorities. They have said that they have in-house housing procurement and other skills which could usefully be offered to approved housing bodies to work collaboratively to meet local needs. The Department is keen to see a blossoming of the relationship between local authorities and approved housing bodies.