Mr. Tom Dunne:

I have five minutes to go through this. I ask the Chairman to tell me if I am getting too close to the end of that.

I thank the Chairman and members, for the invitation to attend the committee today. My name is Tom Dunne and I am the chair of the Residential Tenancies Board. I understand that the focus of the meeting today is on the audited financial statements and on some specific aspects of the work of the Residential Tenancies Board that have been raised in advance by the committee.

I am accompanied today by Mr. Niall Byrne, who was recently appointed as director and commenced his role at the end of January. I would also like to introduce Ms Caren Gallagher, head of communications and research and Mr. Bryan Kelly, head of finance, governance and risk management.

In advance of the committee meeting today, we provided detailed briefing material for committee members, as well as our 2020 annual report, and an advance copy of our opening statement. I hope this information was of assistance to the members.

The Residential Tenancies Board is a public body, established in 2004 under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. The role of the board is to support, develop and promote a well-functioning rental housing sector in Ireland.

I will just list these items briefly; they can be expanded on in the opening statement members have to hand. Under the relevant statutes, the RTB is responsible for: the operation of the national registration system; provision of an efficient and cost-effective dispute-resolution service to tenants, landlords and related third parties in these sectors; the active investigation of non-compliance with residential tenancies legislation and for the issuing of administrative sanctions, where those are justified; publishing the quarterly rent index for private rented accommodation and conducting research into the sector; providing information to landlords, tenants and the broad public on the rights and responsibilities of all parties under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004.

We are acutely aware that the last number of years have posed significant challenges for both landlords and tenants. The Covid-19 pandemic has created further difficulties for people in the sector, as well as for the RTB. To inform the sector, policymakers and the general public, the RTB published detailed research reports on the rental sector during 2021, which offer a comprehensive insight into the experiences and perspectives of landlords, tenants and agents. Among other insights, the research shows that, notwithstanding the very real challenges in the sector, 79% of tenants said their renting experience was positive and 88% of smaller landlords indicated that their experience with their current tenants was positive. We believe this is an important fact that reflects positively on the rental sector in Ireland. This research also showed that affordability is the key issue for tenants and that a proportion of smaller landlords, which is 26%, intend to sell a property within the next five years.

During 2020, the work of the RTB, was focused primarily on ensuring continuity of critical regulatory services during the pandemic and on the effective implementation of an unprecedented series of legislative measures, which continued into 2021. One notable feature in the rental sector in 2020 was the introduction of three Acts in response to Covid-19. The Government’s intention with these measures was to minimise the movement of people caused by the cessation of tenancies and thereby curtail the spread of disease, while also providing protections for tenants who were financially impacted by the pandemic. We set out details of the legislation in the opening statement. I will not go through it again. I am sure members are familiar with it.

An immediate priority for RTB was operationalising these legislative measures to ensure they worked smoothly and effectively for all. It was imperative to ensure that landlords, tenants and wider stakeholders understood the new measures and the resulting requirements of the regulatory framework and that they were made aware of the enhanced supports and services that were made available through the RTB to assist them. Due to the evolving nature of the pandemic and the need for supports for the rental sector, six Acts affecting the RTB were passed between 2020 and 2021. During this unprecedented time, the RTB maintained services across all contact and communication channels despite the rapid move to remote working. There was no disruption to the RTB’s registration compliance capability in terms of landlords or agents registering tenancies. Of necessity, the RTB had to postpone in-person dispute hearings but quickly established replacement mechanisms to allow hearings to resume. Backlogs in the processing of these cases were stabilised and we are currently focussed on the recovery of our timelines. During 2020, there were nearly 270,000 customer service contacts, more than 2,700 mediation and adjudication hearings, and more than 200 tribunal hearings. More than 130,000 registration applications were processed.

As mentioned earlier by the Comptroller and Auditor General about the financial statements, I confirm an error of omission of a single sentence on page 100 of the English version of the published 2020 report. The relevant sentence was included in the Irish language version. This was an oversight on our part for which we apologise. The text has now been corrected on the report as published on the RTB website and we are making arrangements to have the corrected version laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The committee will note from the accounts that the RTB has two primary sources of operating income, as noted by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The funding enables the RTB to carry out its core functions and to develop the organisation as a capable and effective public interest regulator of the sector. Tenancy registration income in 2020 was nearly €11.7 million, which represented approximately 63% of the total.