Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 October 2025
303. Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of approved housing bodies owning and-or managing fewer than 50 residential units in the years 2010, 2020 and 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53346/25]
View answerThe Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority (AHBRA) was established on 1 February 2021 with the over-arching role to provide regulation of Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) for the purposes of protecting housing assets provided or managed by such bodies.
One of the functions of AHBRA is to collect and publish information (including statistical information on the number of dwellings in AHB ownership) concerning AHBs as it considers necessary and appropriate. AHBRA conducted its first monitoring programme in September 2022, the most recent annual statistical publication was for 2024 and is available on their website at the following link: www.ahbregulator.ie/ahbra-publishes-annual-sectoral-analysis-insights-from-the-2024-annual-monitoring-programme/
The AHBRA Sectoral Analysis separates AHBs into five categories with micro being those with 20 dwellings or less, and small being those with 20 to 100 dwellings. The 2024 Sectorial Analysis indicates 224 AHBs in the small and micro categories (fewer than 100 dwellings). It should be noted that there are a further 123 AHBs classified as Care and Support organisations, AHBRA's statistical analysis does not break these down further and it is likely that a percentage of these organisations will also fall into the category of having fewer than 50 residential units.
Prior to the setting up of AHBRA a Voluntary Regulation Code (VRC) was in place. Under the VRC AHBs were broken into small, medium and large. Small AHBs were classified as those with under 50 units, and in 2020 there were 200 AHBs in that cohort. However, it must be stressed that, it is likely that most of the remaining 274 AHBs (that were not signed up to the VRC at the time) would also fall into that cohort. My Department does not hold figures from before the VRC regime.
