Ollie Wilkinson (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this amendment. I agree with the Minister's proposal that consideration of the Bill be adjourned for nine months. This is a serious business and we must do it correctly. There are endless problems in estates due to their management, planning problems and so forth.

There are problems with apartment complex management. Reported problems tend to be about poor standard of maintenance, high charges, sharp increases in charges, delays by developers in transferring control of management companies to apartment owners, management companies being given responsibility for infrastructure that developers and, subsequently, local authorities should maintain and companies ceasing to function because of a failure to comply with requirements of company law or inability to meet financial obligations. Responsibility for these deficiencies seems to arise from a variety of sources, especially the practices of managing agents and developers, apartment owners not participating in running the management companies, problems with company law requirements and aspects of conveyancing practice, and inappropriate planning conditions in some cases. This shows the major problem that exists and how necessary it is to get all the required information before decisions are made.

It is easy to see, without access to the figures, the vast number of houses that have been built in this country over the past ten years. Ireland has the highest rate of home ownership in Europe. It is probably a result of the historical fact that owning one's home was a necessity. Everybody has a historical perspective on this. People who did not own their homes or half owned them were evicted in tough times. That left a legacy. Irish people are proud and are anxious to own their own home. That is a good thing.

What is being done to tackle the problems? The regulation of management agents is to be dealt with by the new national property services regulation authority being established by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Provisions have been proposed by the Law Reform Commission for changes to relevant Companies Acts. A review is being carried out by the company law review group under the aegis of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

It is simply fantastic what has happened with housing in this country. The Government has successfully promoted a range of measures to boost the supply of housing, to modernise and develop the private rented sector and to provide a range of well targeted schemes to meet the needs of those who cannot afford accommodation in the private sector. Over the past ten years approximately 100,000 apartments have been built. There have been record levels of housing output and a new record of almost 81,000 house completions was achieved in 2005, almost 2.5 times the 1996 level. This shows the Government's tremendous commitment to trying to provide homes for everybody.

Homelessness in some areas is a major problem but our population is increasing at a fast rate. In fact, in 15 years there will be 1 million more people in this country. I support the Minister's proposal to postpone consideration of this Bill for another nine months. He is correct to do so to ensure he has all relevant information before a decision is made.

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