Mr. Owen Keegan:

I am uniquely qualified to comment on this question. The reality is that the board of the RTB has not considered and has not taken any view on whether its remit should be expanded. There are approximately 140,000 local authority properties and we are dealing with more than 300,000 properties that are registered so it would be at least a 50% increase. It would be a huge and significant expansion of our remit. My personal opinion is that the RTB has enough on its plate in getting all its systems working to the level we want and addressing issues that were raised today. If it is to happen, I would like it to happen when we have our house in order. Then we can look at expanding our remit. However the RTB has not taken any view on whether it should expand its remit to include local authority tenancies.