Mr. Patrick Davitt:

We have spoken about the figure of 3,000 that Threshold raised. The main reason for those people giving notice is that they want to get vacant possession of the property in order to sell it. That is the one reason that we have not discussed here. We have been skirting around it and talking about different things but that is one of the biggest reasons. Until such time as that is changed, landlords will continue to leave. As Mr. Deverell says, it is much easier to keep a landlord in the market than to try and get a new one into it. If we have to get a new one in, we need encouragement, be it an incentive or whatever else. We need to get landlords into the market, so we must encourage them to come back into the marketplace. At the moment, when someone buys a property for €345,000 and rents it out to somebody, the owner gets one month's deposit upfront and one month's rent, but if the owner has to give an NOT to the person, 56 days notice is required, which means that he or she is behind by a month's rent already. It is ridiculous, to say the least. There must be big changes in the law and they need to come in sooner rather than later if we want to bring more landlords into the marketplace.