Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be clear, I met the RTB specifically on this issue and we went through it. If we were to take a worst-case scenario on timelines, where it would be necessary to go through the full court confirmation process to level a sanction on someone who was not accepting a liability, then some of those fears of the RTB may be realised in terms of the length of time. Following that meeting, I went back to the Attorney General and the legal advices to see how we could come at this in a better way so there is not that fear of those lengthy time periods. What is an improvement in terms of the understanding is there are points at which a person can step out for things like mediation or where a person accepts improper conduct, but it has to be accepted.

As it was explained to me, the reason the threshold seems to be high, in terms of having to get Circuit Court confirmation, is because of a combination of the powers that have been granted, whereby the RTB can investigate and can initiate an investigation itself and the sanctioning, which can potentially total €30,000, is higher than what is awarded in other examples under the existing process. That combination of factors warrants the involvement of the Circuit Court and we have not been able to get around that. What we would hope is that given the clarity we have provided in law in this Bill, the excuses a landlord might be able to give such as "I did not know" and so on, fall away because so many things are being tightened or better defined in this legislation. We also think that, given the power the RTB will have to deal with this and the amount of money that can be levelled, this will be a deterrent and that landlords will be, if not coerced, then induced to admit liability because it can be so clearly proven by an investigating officer because of the legislation but also because we have these officers coming in on foot of the legislation. It remains the case that where a landlord is in breach and the RTB has chosen to pursue, the Circuit Court has to be there.