Mr. Neil McDonnell:

I will be happy to share that advice afterwards. Funnily enough, a constant refrain from landlords before the establishment of the rent pressure zones was that one could not go near leases for constitutional reasons, yet when the State had to intervene to control rents, lo and behold, we had rent pressure zones. There has been a persistent invocation of the Constitution to state leases cannot be touched because they involve a property right. I said somewhat flippantly at a different forum, thereby revealing my age, that when I did constitutional law in University College Galway in the 1980s, the then lawyer said the 1937 Constitution is a very flexible document that protects the rights of the unborn and the right to life but also allows a convict to be taken out of his or her cell and hung by the neck until dead. In short, there is no right in the 1937 Constitution that is not balanced by another. Essentially, the guidance on leases refers to a public good requirement. I appreciate that the Oireachtas has banned the signing of future upward-only rent review contracts but a great many historic ones remain extant, including ones involving the State or local authorities. I gave only one example of one. A local authority notifying a small business that has been shut for a year that its rent is going up is absolutely absurd. It shows the intellectual disconnect between some people and what has been going on for the past year.