Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their submission. I compliment them on their work in determining disputes to the satisfaction of tenants. I have attended a number of meetings. They have done extremely well in establishing a respect for their office and coming down on the side of the person who is most vulnerable in a given situation, while at the same time observing the rules and regulations.

Unfortunately, I do not agree with their assessment of the societal change to the effect that in the future we should rely more on rental property. In fact, that is the cause of our problem. I attended a meeting some years ago when that idea was first floated on the same grounds, namely, that it would facilitate society and job relocation to a greater extent than previously. It did not work that way.

In fact, it made rents as expensive as mortgages, which is the case today, and gave relatively no security of tenure to tenants. It placed a large amount of power in the hands of those providing properties. I do not want to go into all of the rights and wrongs because I am a strong supporter of the need to provide properties for direct purchase, either through local authorities or for allocation to tenants in the public sector, or for purchase by potential owners in the private sector.

One of the problems associated with the boom was the extent to which multiple properties created a bubble for multiple speculators who, in turn, made massive fortunes from land and building properties to such an extend that nobody could afford rents or mortgages. I do not want to reiterate what I said. A person on my salary or that of the Chairman cannot afford the current average mortgage or rent. They are the things upon which we need to ponder.