Mr. Gavin Elliott:

I will address the point Deputy Barry made on the case in Cork. I am aware of the issues in the Leeside apartments. I know both Deputy Barry and Councillor Ryan have been active in supporting the tenants and Threshold in Cork has been assisting. I do not want to talk about that case in particular since the adjudicator has not come back yet and it may be appealed. On the issue of substantial refurbishment and change, we have a legislative regime which envisages three different levels of landlord intervention in a property. In ascending order, there is routine maintenance, substantial refurbishment, which means a notice of termination can be issued, and a substantial change in the nature.

At the very least, we need to put those three levels on a legislative footing and give some sort of definition of what those levels are. It is a matter for the committee and the Oireachtas to decide whether the intended purpose of the substantial change in the nature of exemption has succeeded, in the first instance, and whether it is worth a candle in respect of the abuse of that particular section. The intention was to not allow a situation where landlords simply allowed apartments or houses to fall into deterioration because they could not raise the rents on them more than 4%. It is a question, again, that we need more statistics to address and it is for the Oireachtas to decide whether it should remain in the legislation.