Ms Susanna Lyons:

I thank the committee for inviting me here today to address it regarding the 2021 audited financial statements of the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority, AHBRA. I am joined by AHBRA's head of communication Mr. Steven Sheridan, and our head of finance and corporate services Ms Paula Nyland.

The Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Act 2019 provides for the regulation of AHBs for the purposes of protecting housing assets provided or managed by such bodies. Central to this was the establishment of AHBRA on 1 February 2021. We are funded by the Exchequer from subhead A26 of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Our budget in 2021 was just over €1 million and our total spend was €980,000. Payroll accounted for approximately 66% of our overall spend.

Our board comprises nine members appointed in February 2021 following a process conducted by the Public Appointments Service. Our corporate governance arrangements are determined by our legislation, the code of practice for governance of State bodies and an oversight agreement with the Department. We have a number of regulatory functions, including the establishment and maintenance of registration, the setting of standards, encouraging and facilitating better governance, administration, management of AHBs, collecting and publishing information, assessing compliance against the standards and undertaking investigations and enforcement actions as appropriate.

AHBs are independent not-for-profit organisations whose purpose includes the provision and management of housing. They play a central role in the Government's Housing for All plan. AHBs report that they own, lease and manage just over 53,000 dwellings. The sector is complex and layered with a large number of AHBs that differ in size, scale, delivery models, funding structures and risk profiles. We have entered a multifaceted regulatory environment.

Our powers and functions were commenced on a phased basis throughout 2021 and 2022. One of our initial tasks was the development of our first statement of strategy, which we launched in October 2021. It sets out our vision, mission, values and five strategic objectives. These are captured in members' information packs. We have spent considerable time establishing our organisational structures, policies and procedures and implementing an appropriate governance framework. The current staff complement is 20. Thirteen staff transferred from the Housing Agency and we also commenced a recruitment programme, which remains ongoing.

In 2021, we drafted the standards for AHBs. They cover the areas of governance, financial management and reporting, property and asset management and tenancy management by AHBs. In drafting the standards, we conducted extensive engagement with key stakeholders. In 2021, we launched our website, hosted a series of educational communication webinars and made significant presentations to our key stakeholders.

Initially, the Housing Agency provided a range of services for AHBRA, enabling and supporting our early operations. These administrative services were governed by a service-level agreement and unwound in 2022. In January 2022, 450 AHBs were deemed registered. From this date, we became responsible for registration. We published the register and launched the registration programme. As part of this, there was an initial capture of information, which helped to inform the process. We published the standards for AHBs in February 2022 followed by guidance to support each standard. Our remaining powers and functions were commenced in July 2022 with AHBRA becoming operational. We published our regulatory framework in September. It sets out the framework that AHBs are subject to and outlines our risk-based approach to the sector. We launched our notifiable and general concerns programmes. We launched our annual monitoring programme where AHBs are requested to provide a range of information and data, which we are analysing and evaluating. We will use it to inform our future planned assessment programmes, identify common risks, develop education and guidance programmes and publish sectoral analysis. We introduced a pilot assessment programme that involves a small but diverse set of AHBs. That will allow us to test and evaluate the effectiveness of our process and procedures. Our formal assessment programme will be commenced in the first half of 2023.

We remain at the early stages of our evolution but we have made significant progress in establishing the organisation and putting in place the required regulatory structures but there is more to do. We remain committed to working with all our key stakeholders in delivering effective regulation. I am happy to respond to any questions members may have.