Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 September 2024

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:30 am

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A question arises in that regard that I want to draw to the attention of the committee. There are some people who may be more advanced in years and who own a second or third house. They are retired now. They are not online and they do not have a computer or a smartphone. I have come across a couple of cases where people had extreme difficulty, despite extensive efforts, registering properties.

I know that because there are two cases I dealt with that proved nearly impossible to get resolved. I had to go the management of the RTB and jump through several hoops until we eventually got the properties registered. In one case, a retired woman went through a three-year process trying to register a property. She kept receiving penalties. One of the things we might recommend to the RTB - there is a constitutional right at stake - is that there should be a facility for people who own a property or rent out a granny flat, who do not want to go online or are not online, including for reasons of disability. We must allow for that to happen. We cannot continue to say that people must be online and if they are not online that the computer keeps dishing out penalties to people without any recourse. Perhaps the committee disagrees with me, but it is wrong. It is good if people are online and we should help them to get online but in some cases, perhaps because people are dyslexic or whatever else, they are not online. With the agreement of members, we will ask for that in future dealings with the RTB. We will continue with the other points members want to raise.

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