Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

The programme for Government says the Government will move responsibility for the Multi-Unit Developments, MUD, Acts to the Department of housing from the Department of justice and establish a unit in the Housing Agency to regulate owners' management companies, OMCs, to ensure effective governance. That is important work that needs to happen. The problem is that it is not happening currently, but it has been agreed. Effectively what is holding it up is that, as a result of the Mulcreevy judgment, the primary legislation needs to be changed. At the moment, the MUD Act refers to the Minister for justice and not the Minister for housing. A simple amendment is needed to change the reference to the Minister for housing. Until that happens, all this work of regulatory oversight of OMCs and so on is simply not taking place. There was a meeting of the housing committee to discuss these issues. It invited various officials from the Department of housing and was told they could not come yet because their line Minister is not yet responsible for this.

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