Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Where does it revert to? I have looked at the briefings for today's meeting and read about the five different schemes, and I am not clear about what happens at the end. If the State has equity in a scheme, it has control of the asset. The reason I ask the question is because some of the earlier and especially smaller AHBs that started in the 1990s are now coming out the other end of it, so to speak. A small one I am aware of is in a situation where allocations have never come through the local authority and it built, possibly, as far as I can ascertain, and there will be clarification from the Department and the local authority on this, with 100% finance. There is no regard to rent. No allocations are coming through the local authority. A private company is now running the show. The only interface the tenants, who are vulnerable, have with anyone is with a private company. Some were handed forms recently to go to the social welfare office and claim rent supplement to pay higher rents, and to cap it all off, new tenants coming in for a considerable period of time are paying hello money of up to €10,000.

Let me be clear. In the main, the AHBs play a valuable role. They are very good. We will accept that some are better than others. In our neck of the woods we have been lucky with some good ones. Certainly, we have found that some of the bigger ones provide good quality housing, good tenant liaison, fair rents and so on. The sector is good.

However, I am concerned about vulnerable tenants. The first thing that is going wrong is that the allocations are not coming through the local authority, which assesses housing needs. That is the gate people come through, is that correct? Now, rents can be increased. Recently, there was a situation where a manager, who perhaps would have handled it on behalf of a voluntary board, is now supplanted by a private management company that notifies residents that their rents will increase by perhaps 60%. There is a situation with that. Some people have been handed forms to go down and claim rent supplement. I also raise the question of hello money. Can Ms Feeney deal with that for me?