Mr. Niall Byrne:

In fairness to the Department, we received €2 million extra in the 2023 budget allocation, which is very welcome. Additional resources are always welcome in that they always make a difference if they are deployed well against critical performance issues such as we have at the moment. I do not think the issue is just about resources. Some of the issues are about management, control and the strategy of the RTB. As the Chair mentioned, we are currently developing a new statement of strategy for 2023 to 2025. This will be approved by the RTB board in January and one of the core areas of attention will be to focus on the organisation itself. In my view, the organisation requires significant development. I am not criticising any of my colleagues but structure is very important. When the structure moves out of alignment with the mission of the organisation then difficulties arise. I attribute some of the current problems to the organisation structure. However, during the course of this year we have had additional resources come on stream. As of next week, I will have two deputy directors working with me. Ms Crimin is one and we will have a new colleague joining us next week. That allows us to devote much more management attention to some of the underlying issues.

The RTB has undergone a lot of change over the last four years and there was the pandemic as well. I am not using any of that as a get-out clause. I simply want to illustrate the difficulties that arise for small public bodies and the RTB is a small public body trying to deal with quite a complex area of administration using complex legal provisions. I can say that from my own experience, as someone who does not come from this background but from a different area of social regulation. Coming to terms with the rules and provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act and the way in which they have changed over the last five years is certainly a significant challenge for me, as it is for many people in the sector.

The Department is very open to discussions about resourcing and has been supportive of previous requests. I recently made a request for a third deputy director post at principal officer level to help us to deal with the digital and data issues we are currently facing. The Department is very supportive of that particular submission. I do not think it is just that, but it is obviously part of the overall equation.

As we move into our new strategy, we are going to-----