Housing

Donal McManus: Scrapping Approved Housing Bodies would only make crisis worse

Donal McManus, chief executive of the Irish Council for Social Housing, responds to an article in last week’s Business Post in defence of Approved Housing Bodies

Donal McManus, chief executive of the Irish Council for Social Housing: ‘the scrapping of AHBs would leave a huge gap in the range of housing options for vulnerable households and those with affordability problems’. Picture: Rollingnews

Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) own and manage over 54,000 homes. They are not-for-profit entities with a social purpose. AHBs in Ireland provide social rented housing. Since 2021, some AHBs have also delivered new cost rental housing targeted at moderate income households in mixed tenure developments.

The sector has evolved significantly over the last 30 years from delivering one in five of all new social housing to now providing 44 per cent of all new social ...