Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the surface this Bill sounds pleasant enough citing increased regulation for the AHB sector and the establishment of an independent regulator with functions to include establishing and maintaining a register of AHBs and also preparing draft standards, monitoring and assessing compliance by AHBs, including undertaking investigations. However, once we dig deep we unearth what seems to be a cover for both the Government's failings in the provision of housing for its citizens as well as an open invitation to bring in more private investors into the property market.

The Bill as presented will mean that regulation and monitoring within the AHB sector will be duplicated. The stated rationale of the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government for introducing statutory regulation is ensuring the governance and the financial viability of the sector, safeguarding the State's contribution towards AHBs in respect of housing assets and providing assurance to tenants, the public and investors. All this is proposed, despite the fact that the Housing Agency already exists to do much of what the Bill proposes. Standards have already been drafted for AHBs and a voluntary code of conduct enacted. Monitoring and assessing compliance is going through the Housing Agency while the agency has a registry of AHBs in the country. Why the duplication and the establishment of another quango with powers the Housing Agency already has? Why not statutorily enhance the powers of the Housing Agency, increase the number of staff within it, which is being proposed for the establishment of a regulator anyway, and widen the remit of the RTB to protect tenants under AHBs and increase tenant rights under the agency? It can mean only one thing which is that the Government is attempting to attract private finance into the country from private investors. This way the Government can keep social housing off the Exchequer books and hand over even more of the responsibility to the sector, thereby reducing the burden of its provision of social housing for people in the country. Fine Gael really has not learned anything from the past decade or two whereby private entities speculated over the housing market causing a catastrophic recession leading us to where we are now, which is an over-speculated market, increased financialisation of home ownership and the private market finding its feet again while the number of homeless families has increased by 178% since June 2015 and where more than one in three people in emergency accommodation is a child.

Fine Gael has learned to be cunning in the way it increases the role of private finance in Ireland and this Bill is clearly a smokescreen to do just that while covering themselves by saying it is to protect tenants' rights. Traditional grant funding of AHBs by the Exchequer has been replaced with increased use of loan finance, that is a fact and, yes, as a result there are new challenges for the sector in terms of attracting funding to increase the number of units growing, however loan finance is not the answer to the ongoing housing crisis. Now more than ever we need a national social housing programme because the greater the role loan finance has the less of a role the Government will play in its duty to provide housing to its citizens. Furthermore, recent changes by the CSO and EUROSTAT to reclassify tier 3 AHBs, the largest ones in terms of housing units, as general Government sector means their expenditure will go on the Government's balance sheet. Loans taken by AHBs are expected to be €1,683 million by 2019, which is an increase of 469% from 2016. Relying solely on AHBs and loan finance to make up the housing numbers is not sustainable. I believe AHBs were only ever meant to dominate the market as the private sector has. They are there to provide a supporting role to the social housing sector and to cater for niche housing needs. It is clear that Fine Gael is angling for AHBs and the private sector to dominate and eventually sideline social housing initiatives. Just look at the scale: the Department estimates that AHBs have the capacity to deliver one third of the 47,000 new social housing units that are targeted up to 2021. That is quite a sizeable chunk and will no doubt increase in line with the availability of loan finance in this country.

While I agree with proper and effective regulation I believe it must be done for the right reasons by the appropriate authorities and with the resources necessary to monitor implementation. Many Bills come through this House and once passed are never implemented due to resource constraints. That is why I do not understand why the existing powers of the Housing Agency and the interim regulator within the Housing Agency cannot be expanded to do what this Bill attempts to do.

Furthermore, the right entities must be regulated and I find it interesting that local authorities have been largely left out of the question of increased regulation altogether. The Government, while forcing duplicate regulation in other sectors, continues to fail to regulate its own stock. The RTB still has no authority over local authority housing or the ability to protect local authority housing tenants. If the Government is so concerned about tenant rights in this Bill why not go back to the RTB and enhance protections there? AHBs are required to adhere to the compliance framework, which is regulated under the voluntary regulation code managed by the regulation office in the Housing Agency. AHBs must also go through rigorous reporting with insurance companies but when it comes to local authorities, they can just walk in and do what they like. What standards do they have to comply with and who is regulating them? Constituents come to our offices with concerns about the standard of their local authority housing, with local authorities not responding to the individual's housing needs or not responding on time to repair what needs fixing. AHBs are required to have a sinking fund, a fund which allows them to continue to manage their housing stock if it happens to go bust. It is three times the amount that local authorities are required to have.

I disagree with Deputy Boyd Barrett about AHBs. There is more input from tenants to have problems resolved, given that AHBs are the resource to do that whereas the local authorities are not. That is the Government's responsibility but it does not provide the local authorities with resources to hire people to deal with the tenants under their responsibility. One of the selling points the Government uses for AHBs is that they are great because they interact with tenants and have a proactive way of dealing with them. It is simply because local authorities are not given the funding to do the same, which is the problem. While it is true that it may be different in Dublin because there are different regimes among all the local authorities, which is a problem, in County Donegal at least, AHBs have a more proactive role in tenant management than the local authority, although that is because the latter is not funded to do it and is not required to do it, which is the real problem. Local authority housing would be managed a lot better if the local authorities had the same responsibilities as AHBs.

The crux of the issue lies in the Bill's main goal, namely, to have AHBs subsidise the private sector by buying private units to turn them into social housing. If AHBs are subsidising the private market, the private market profits off the State. Meanwhile, the State fails to build on its own stock and increases the role of loan finance to address people's housing needs. Appropriate regulation where it is needed, regulating what should be regulated by the appropriate body, should be central to any legislation. The Bill, however, fails to regulate appropriately where regulation is needed, which is at the existing bodies that already manage various aspects of the housing sector. Given that it has been done in the case of AHBs, why are we bringing in new legislation? It does not make sense. The House's time would be better spent dealing with matters on which we can make a difference rather than bringing in such legislation. It is less about reassuring the public or tenants in AHB units than reassuring private investors they hold a special place in the Government's heart.

See this speech in context