Ms Rosalind Carroll:

It is a journey towards transparency but that transparency will need to be strengthened. The Minister has told us and also openly stated that he is committed to introducing annual registration and he is continuing to work on that. It is an important piece of the puzzle. I do not wish to get technical with the committee but the Bill contains an amendment to section 139 of the current legislation, which would place an onus on landlords to come forward and tell us about every rent review, as I stated. That will be difficult to enforce because of the difficulty in determining who to go after. How will I know if a landlord has done a rent review? That could involve me writing to every landlord every year to ask them to confirm it, which would cost €174,000.

Given the scale and diversity of our sector, trying to regulate that will not be as effective as it could be. I would caution about that. I believe a more programmed smarter form of regulation will allow for more effective regulation.

The strength of what is before us is the fact that we publish every sanction that comes out. While resources represent an element of this, I hope after a year of the Residential Tenancies Board carrying out investigations and publishing all these sanctions, it will start to change behaviour within the market. Seeing that the sanctions are working - on the tenant and landlord sides - will start an empowerment and will also ensure more caution on the part of those not in compliance with the legislation currently.

The Deputy asked how serious a complaint needs to be in order for us to take it. On the basis of the heads of the Bill, my understanding is that anything can be said to us and we can investigate it. The only exception is malicious complaints and I do not expect to get too many of those. The idea is that somebody can make a complaint either anonymously or by giving their name. At the moment, while I cannot do anything with them, I get former tenants writing to me because they have seen their past property advertised at a rate beforehand. I expect to be able to use that much more effectively in future. All I need is something to prompt an investigation. Then I can ask the landlord directly and look for the supporting evidence of the rent they are receiving by way of bank statements and so on. It should be quite an effective means and will not be a system based on tenants coming forward with evidence. Somebody will be able to come forward and say, "I think there's a problem here in relation this and this is why." We can have a quick look at it and start an investigation if we feel there is non-compliance.

The Deputy also asked what can be contravened. The heads before the committee propose two contraventions in the schedule. One of them relates to rent pressure zones. That could be the exemptions or the 4% increase. The second piece, which is important for us, relates to non-registration of tenancies. As I mentioned earlier, if a tenancy has not been registered we have to pursue the criminal route, which is very difficult for us and it means our investigations are quite limited. Hopefully we will be able to use the civil-sanctions model provided that the legislation is passed. Those are the two contraventions specified in the heads at the moment.

I think that dealt with most of Deputy Coppinger's questions.

Both Deputies Coppinger and Ó Broin commented on the quarterly changes. I agree that the market is not stable. Things increase and reduce followed by further increases and reductions. If I could see a third quarter of moderation that would be the first time we would have seen three quarters of moderation. The next quarter's figures will give us a sense of whether the trend is continuing. That is important for us to look at. We are seeing dips - things go up and things go down. It is the dark arts at the moment. It is important for us even to get a scale. If I could get those exemptions out of there, I would be able to point to clear non-compliance. I would expect to see a good annual rate on a consistent basis at about 5% under the rent pressure zone legislation. I say 5% because not everybody will complete a review every two years. There will be a pro ratacatch up for some people. That means it may always be a little bit ahead of the 4%. However, we should see it at around that level. We would obviously like to see it stabilise and have a dampening effect. We need to remember that the overall impact of this was not just on the individual rents; it was to have a dampening effect on the overall market so that by some rents being reduced, even the new rents overall would get reduced. We need to see it start working more effectively. I agree with the Deputy on that.

At the moment purpose-built student accommodation publicly funded by the Higher Education Authority is specifically excluded from our legislation. Anything that a public body has, whether it is the HSE or us, does not come within the remit of the RTB. When I talk about what might be within our remit at the moment, I am talking about privately built student accommodation.