Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Chairman. I will adhere to the order in which the contributions were made. I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee today. The committee is looking at every available option for scaling up and having a more diverse housing stock. The approved housing bodies are very much part of that process. As it is a precursor to this legislation, I am curious to hear if the voluntary code worked and if there were parts of it that did not work which we are in danger of repeating.

With regard to scaling up, will the proposals assist in this? When the Housing Agency appeared before the committee on a previous occasion it told us there was a lot of money available that could have been accessed, for example from the European Investment Bank or pension funds. However, the housing associations tell us how difficult it is to access those funds. It is useful for the committee to understand that and what might be done about it.

We are talking about some level of co-responsibility or co-guarantee with the approved housing bodies. Do the witnesses have any assessment of what might be possible in the next ten years in terms of scaling up the sector? How does what is proposed impact on that? Is it positive or negative? Is there something that should be included which has not been?

A thread seems to run through the general scheme, which is that there is a great deal of additional obligation being put in place. Are these additional obligations balanced? I heard somebody say the regulator should have an enabling role rather than one that is to oversee good governance, and that it is a question of trying to find a balance between both. I am curious to hear what can be done and what it would look like if it were an enabling role. The regulatory impact analysis is a good idea in general because it is quite difficult to visualise the change in an academic sense. This would be quite useful. In terms of co-operative housing and the 3,500, what is the breakdown in terms of tenure? Have there been different experiences with stock that is tenanted as opposed to purchased?

We have quite a fragmented approach to much of how we do things. In many ways, it has not worked to our advantage. Why is it so important to have the role of the regulator being independent of the Housing Agency? The witnesses might just articulate that for us. Someone said the regulator will not govern the landlord-tenant relationship. Should it? While there is other legislation and an independent regulator, it is one thing to manage the physical stock. There is a significant role of tenant management, if one likes. How might that work where there is a mixed scheme? Is it seen as something that could be incorporated here?