Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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710. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to institute a scheme, along the lines of the scheme instituted by the State for small trade unions in Trade Union Act 1975, to encourage and facilitate small approved housing bodies to amalgamate, merge and restructure; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34250/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) are organisations approved by my Department under Section 6 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1992 to provide social housing support. Formed for the purpose of relieving housing need and the provision and management of housing, AHBs are not-for-profit bodies and are generally either:

- Limited Companies formed by guarantee of their members and not having a shareholding, registered under the Companies Act;

- Societies registered under the Industrial & Provident Societies Acts; or

- Trusts incorporated under the Charities Acts.

AHBs are independent organisations. As such, any decision to amalgamate or merge with another AHB is entirely a matter for the independent Board of an AHB and I have no plans to institute a scheme in relation to this matter.

Approved Housing Bodies have an important role to play in delivery under the Government’s Social Housing Strategy 2020. This recognises the record of steady achievement by AHBs over the past 20 years in providing over 28,000 units of quality accommodation. A further 2,700 properties are leased and/or managed by AHBs.

My Department is working closely with the representative bodies for the sector, the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) and the National Association of Building Co-operatives (NABCO), individual AHBs and others to strengthen their capacity to deliver social housing. To this end, the Strategy includes a number of actions that will help to promote the optimal configuration of what is a very diverse sector if it is to fulfil an enhanced role in social housing supply. These include a commitment to develop a more effective system of funding for AHBs and to establish a statutory-based regulator for the sector.