Mr. Patrick Davitt:

Regarding standards, I have proposed in IPAV's budget submission that before a property goes on the rental market, a certificate should be required confirming it is up to standards and up to date. That could easily be done. At the moment, in the case of HAP tenants, for instance, people come into the property and the next thing is there is an inspection and a very long list of things that have to be done. Why are we allowing situations like to happen? Would it not be a lot easier to require a certificate of fitness for a property before it goes on the rental market? If that were the case, there would be no more need for inspections of any description when a property is rented out to a tenant. That is my view on inspections of rental properties.

Deputy Ó Broin spoke about landlords being able to increase rents by 18% or 20%. We have discussed this on many occasions and he knows as well as I do why landlords did not increase rents. At that particular time, we did not have a crystal ball to see there would be all these amendments and changes down the road. The rent pressure zones were brought upon us and they were to be in place for three years. A lot of landlords were saying, "If my rent is not brought up to date for three years, what about it?" In fact, we had three years, three years more and now another three years to the end of 2024. God only knows how many more we will have after that. This is one of the reasons rents were not brought up to date. If a landlord had a good tenant, he or she was quite happy to keep that tenant and keep the rent below the market rent. Before rent pressure zones came in, landlords knew they could increase the rent to market rent at any time but, unfortunately, we are now in a situation where they cannot do that.