Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all of the witnesses for their presentations. I will set a bit of context. The spirit in which we decided to hold this meeting was not necessarily to give anybody a hard time for the discrepancy but obviously it is a matter on which we are keenly interested to get more clarity. We really wanted to be helpful as opposed to adversarial, so my questions are very much in that vein. This is not just a question of a statistic because so much of our debate within this committee and in the Oireachtas on the state of the private rental sector over the last years has been influenced by the available data at the time and the RTB registration and notice of termination data were key. On top of that we were also looking at the age profile of certain cohorts of single-property landlords, we were looking at the return of positive equity, which also came in roughly about the same time as the rent pressure zones, and we were looking at what was happening in our own constituencies. We were particularly looking at the exit figures of families from emergency accommodation over a comparable period. All of this was leading all of us to believe that a significant portion of single-property landlords were exiting and those properties were leaving the private rental sector. The reason this debate is so important is because the CSO data really challenge that. This is not a bad thing. Obviously accurate data are really important. If this committee can do anything to assist the witnesses' organisations not only in reaching that goal but then making sure that the public debate is properly informed, we will be keen to do that.

I have some quick points. I am interested in the CSO's initial estimate of about 1,000 AHB tenancies underestimated. If one actually compares the RTB approved housing body registration data for 2021, it is significantly higher than in the census. According to the Irish Council for Social Housing, in the intervening year the AHBs delivered 8,500 or 9,500 new units. Not all would have been delivered, tenanted or registered during 2022, the census year. It would seem to me that the underestimation of AHB properties is much greater than 1,000. I am interested in the witnesses' views on that.

There is also the difference between AHB registrations and leased properties. I believe that a fair number of tenants in leased properties are unclear who their landlord actually is: there is a private property owner, there is a local authority and then there is a property managing agent. It may be something that the CSO would look at for questions in future years.

Maybe there is a requirement for fourth and fifth options, leased properties - because they are a different nature - as well as licensees. The issue of licensees is obviously more challenging because how many licensees actually fill out the census form versus the primary property owner? I suspect the number of licensees is a little bit smaller.

On some other data sources - and Senator Fitzpatrick's point is right on the piece of research that Dr. Byrne and Threshold did - if one does a county by county comparison of housing assistance payment, HAP, registrations and RTB registrations, it throws up some pretty big anomalies. There are some counties where there are dramatically more HAP tenancies being funded by the State than there are RTB registrations. Again, although some of that HAP data would be general data protection regulation, GDPR-protected, HAP registrations by county are already available in the public domain. I recommend that an attempt be made to look at that.

I am keen, first of all, to get a sense of the AHBs and to see if HAP registrations can be brought into the discussion in a manner that is GDPR compliant. Obviously enforcement is a key thing. Mr. Byrne and I have spoken before, and there was a significant drop-off in enforcement activity over the past number of years. Clearly, if registrations are a significant portion of that 54,000, enforcement then becomes even more important. Mr. Byrne might give us some indications as to where things are going in that direction. Can we hear from Mr. Halpin first, and Mr. Byrne second?