Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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If we were to allow a raft of third-party people to make applications, that might delay the processing of applications and would not be in the interest of applicants. All of these things are fully encompassed in this comprehensive legislation.

On the Private Residential Tenancies Board, I am, again, applying an effective date of 2012. I picked that date and not 2011 or 2013, for instance, because it is the year in which the board began to gather data electronically. Before that, it operated a paper-based system, processing some 1.2 million paper-based records annually. The workload of the PRTB is heavy and intensive, with 300,000 registrations per annum, 150,000 individual landlords to deal with and 635,000 tenants. Despite Deputy McDonald's difficulty in getting through, I am advised that the board dealt with 54,000 telephone calls in 2013. Clearly, somebody's calls are being answered. One must take a practical decision as to whether it is reasonable to say that the date from which the board began gathering data electronically should be the effective date, or if one should put a burden on the board such that it would have to search 1.2 million paper-based files manually for each year prior to that date.

The answer is if it is the person's own file then he or she will have to do that, but not for a third party. That is a reasonable position. I have argued throughout the debate that I want to be as comprehensive as I can be, but the approach must be tempered by some semblance of reasonableness in order that we do not kill off organisations by putting a burden on them that simply stops them from functioning effectively.

To be clear on the position in response to the question posed by Deputy McDonald on An Coiminiséir Teanga, the coiminiséir has exactly the same status as any other ombudsman. The effect of the motion will put the office in exactly the same position as other ombudsman offices. In other words, the administrative files relating to the office will be subject to FOI but how it deals with individual cases is not. Have I been too long, Chairman?