Mr. Paul Lemass:

I will respond to the question on residential tenancies. I think the matter relating to planning is clear.

There are two stand-alone processes. In a situation where a tenant makes a declaration and a landlord makes a counterdeclaration, the tenant has applied for certain protections and the landlord, who also claims to be suffering from hardship, wants to resist the granting of this protection. It does not go any further than that. The landlord can pursue an eviction through a separate process called a "notice of termination". The notice periods for that process are prescribed. If a landlord does not subsequently make a notice of termination, the tenancy is not terminated. The protection for the tenant, the notice periods and the ability to raise a dispute as part of a termination process continue to apply. If a declaration is made by a tenant and a counterdeclaration is made by a landlord, the landlord may then wish to pursue a notice of termination. He or she would then have to give the required notice period. If the tenant feels the landlord is not being fair, he or she can, for this or any other reason, raise a dispute relating to the notice of termination. That dispute then goes to arbitration through the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, which has been hearing disputes on a range of matters for years. There is a safety net in place for a tenant whose landlord chooses to block any declaration. The dispute process also provides a safeguard for the landlord by determining whether a declaration has been made in the correct manner.