Mr. Bryan Kelly:

I thank the Deputy. I am head of finance in the RTB. It is a very good question. As the Deputy knows, the nature of annual registration is that landlords will have to register tenancies every year and there is a much higher throughput of volume. Whereas the annual registration fee for a private tenancy will be €40 compared with €90 currently, our sense is that we will probably triple our volume. Simple mathematics say that should generate more income for us. It will not allow us to be self-funding based on our current projections. If we had a full year of annual registrations, the high-water mark might be an increase of maybe €2 million in our private residential income. As the Deputy can see from our accounts, however, we spend not too shy of €20 million or €21 million per year. In the reference year, 2020, it is €18 million. We will, therefore, continue to need to draw down Exchequer funding but our anticipation is that when annual registration gets bedded in, it will increase our private income.

I will make one more remark, which is really a comment on nuance. One thing on which we do not have a good handle will be the customer behavioural aspects associated, first, with the requirement to register annually but also the fact that the price has come from €90 down to €40. There is in the Act a very aggressive late fee mechanism to incentivise or encourage landlords to register promptly. There is a risk, however, that somebody will say it is only €40 and let it slip. That is a thing we will probably need to monitor in the first year of annual registration.