Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is good to see the Minister of State again. As he is aware, we will not be opposing the Bill. The changes being made here to the registration regime for approved housing bodies are necessary. We accept that they need to be introduced as a matter of urgency. I understand it is on that basis that pre-legislative scrutiny was waived. My colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, has asked me to thank the officials for facilitating the briefing at last week's committee meeting.

When we look at what the approved housing bodies were saying, there are some elements of the Bill that really need to be teased out. That is not to say we cannot support the changes proposed on cost rental, but there are parts that definitely need more thought to be sure we do not end up with unintended consequences. I will go into those in a moment.

It is important to point out again that pre-legislative scrutiny was waived on the basis of the first Part of the Bill being urgent, but the additional elements on cost rental were not urgent and should have gone through pre-legislative scrutiny because there are concerns that need to be teased out, and now we do not have time to do that.

The main issue with the cost-rental sector is the rising level of rent, yet this Bill does nothing to address that, which is really disappointing. Increasingly, the cost-rental units that are on offer are so expensive that they are excluding so many of the people for whom cost rental was mostly designed, that is, singles and couples on incomes above the threshold for social housing.

With respect to section 15, and the revised definition of "household" and income eligibility changes for single people sharing or a couple sharing, we agree with the idea in principle, however, there is a danger of unintended consequences, such as a worsening scenario of involuntary sharing. This could happen when two single people agree to share a rental property but, at some point, one of them may find that their circumstances have changed.They might have a partner or a child and then they are stuck because, financially, it will not be viable for them to exit cost-rental. As I said, the Bill does nothing to make cost-rental more affordable. People in that situation may become trapped involuntarily in sharing arrangements into their late 20s or early 30s. Of course, we are already seeing that happen in the private rental sector.

What this Bill could and should have dealt with is the real problem, which is that rents are too high. I note that in the speeches of the Minister of State and the Fianna Fáil Member, they did not mention the cost of cost-rental, which is kind of important. If we look at recent cost-rental at Citywest in Dublin, for example, the rents are almost €1,400 per month for a one-bedroom unit. That is worth repeating. Does the Minister of State think it is affordable? It is almost €1,600 for a two-bedroom unit and almost €1,800 for a three-bedroom unit. A major concern is that there is no single funding model for cost-rental and the problem with how the various funding mechanisms work is that they push rents in a particular direction.

Another issue we have with these cost-rental revisions in the Bill is in regard to the allocations scheme. We understand the Minister will prescribe in regulations the criteria against which allocations can be made but the cost-rental landlord will apply to the Minister to utilise some or all of those conditions in individual schemes or in the whole offering. There was probably a better way to do this. Again, we are not opposed to the idea of an allocations scheme but it would be better to tease it out more and get it right, rather than rushing it through in this Bill. As it is, this will cause a lot of confusion as different schemes will have different conditions.

Another issue that we hope the Minister will consider is how to facilitate mutual transfers across cost-rental providers. We have seen this problem arise with social housing provided by approved housing bodies. If somebody is in need of a transfer because their family is growing or they want to downsize, but the AHB has limited housing stock and cannot provide a transfer, getting a transfer from one AHB to another is almost impossible in social housing. It seems the problem is going to be replicated here. If a mutual transfer was provided across the cost-rental providers, that would be helpful.

With regard to the tenant in situscheme, we accept that this provision is legally required. However, the tenant in situscheme has been a disaster and this Bill will not fix the issues. The approved housing bodies were asked at last week’s committee if they thought this legislative fix would really change or reduce the level of challenge they currently have in acquiring those properties under the tenantin situscheme. The response was as follows:

To be perfectly honest, I do not think it will make a material difference. We still will have the challenges of them being one-off properties. The additional piece is not just the cost of managing and maintaining single units but also the condition they are in...

The Minister must look at the way the scheme is funded and, in particular, take into account the age of some of the properties that AHBs are being asked to buy, and the fact that refurbishment and repair is an additional cost to them. Deputy Ó Broin has raised all of the same concerns with the Minister. I hope our comments and those of the approved housing bodies will be considered now, or at least before the subsequent regulations are drawn up.