Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all of the witnesses. I agree they should have had more notice and we do need to revisit this. The submissions of the witnesses have been very informative. We will also have to make sure that in future any correspondence does not clash with a president's dinner or a president's weekend. It is good to get their perspective.

It is quite possible to safeguard landlords' rights and tenants' rights at the same time. As a housing committee, it is very important that we do this. To the best of the Government's ability, I would like to think that we have endeavoured to do this.

I hope we will continue to do the same for the lifetime of the Government. I believe most of the representatives in here would agree with what I have observed, which is that very few people who come in to me say that they want to buy the house when they have been given a notice to quit. What they want to do is stay in the house. In that respect, the tenant in situand cost-rental schemes have ticked an awful lot of the boxes. Some speakers have already referenced that these are working very well and have merit, although they may need some fine tuning. I would question whether we need this new layer in the process. Perhaps we need to do more with our cost-rental and tenant in situschemes and to make it easier for tenants to avail of them. We also have to acknowledge that an increasing number of tenants want to remain tenants. We in Ireland are obsessed with the right to property, homeownership and buying a house but there are a lot of people who are quite happy to remain as tenants and should be given that right. In that respect, the tenant in situscheme works very well. From my experience, it is working very well.

I agree with the witnesses on the transfer issue. There will be complications for people who want to transfer to a family member. The point on nursing homes is very good, and we need to explore the matter further. That would certainly cause some concerns. I also agree that there is an opportunity for less scrupulous tenants to exploit the situation, to extend and to go for the full 90 days, elongating the process. There needs to be some safeguards in that regard. The IPAV's recommendation that there should be a public commitment from Government on the transfer of properties to spouses and family members is important. We have long safeguarded and upheld property rights in this country. We need to do that. I have some reservations about the legislation so today's meeting has been timely from the point of view of both Threshold and the witnesses' organisations. I would welcome an opportunity to have the speakers back in at a later date. That is all I have to say for today. I have no questions.