Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Yes, there are difficulties around the way it was constructed. There are differences concerning undue hardship as well. I think we all are aware of individual landlords who are reliant on one particular property for their day-to-day income or pension. Proving undue hardship when it involves the sale of ten or more units, however, is going to be much more difficult. I can see the intention of the legislators in this regard back in 2016.

The other point I made on Second Stage was on what would happen if this exemption were gone. In terms of market prices and expectations around values and sales, in cases where people buy or assemble a portfolio of ten homes or more, the expectation normally would be that they would be sold with the tenants in situ. This situation then gets baked into the calculations and the market. It means someone is not then at a disadvantage compared with someone exercising this clause, if it no longer exists, to achieve vacant possession. In fact, there is potentially an unfairness here as well. If someone did manage to exercise this clause and was able to achieve a better sales price, then how would that be fair on those other landlords?

Of course, there is a knock-on impact for the tenants and renters as well, which is obviously where I was coming from. If we were to think about this context from the perspective of landlords or investors, though, there is an exception rule that is very hard for them to use or get access to. This potentially puts some landlords and investors at a disadvantage compared with others. There is a question of fairness there and about creating expectations of what will be the realisable value for multiple properties. On this basis, therefore, I think there is a good case to be made to remove this provision, as well as because of the impacts on renters, homelessness and the other issues related to the first Bill we are talking about.