Mr. Tom Dunne:

The Deputy is right to observe that the number of registered tenancies is dropping. There are complexities involved, which Ms Gallagher will address, in respect of the change from the original once-off four year-registration to annual registration. The Deputy is right to note that there are not as many landlords leaving the market as you think. The point that comes out of that research is that quite a lot of landlords intend to stay in the market. I draw the Deputy's attention to the table on page 8 of the material provided. An interesting question as to when people acquired the properties that they sold is asked. Some 100 landlords were investigated. Looking through the table, you can seen the properties were acquired from 1990 all the way up to 2000. The figures are 1%, 2% and 3%. There was a big lurch in numbers from 2002 all the way to 2010. That was during the Celtic tiger years when people were incentivised through the tax structure to invest in residential property. This is tentative, but it may be that what we are seeing now is that bunch of people leaving the market. People who bought flats, moved out of those flats and rented them and then moved into houses are now out of negative equity. This may be a wave coming through. It is hard to tell from the data we have at present. Hopefully, annual registration will help with a lot of this, but that is an interesting pointer or indicator. I draw some comfort from that. It is wrong to say the private residential sector is not attractive to landlords. It is not attractive to some landlords. As they leave, the nation will have to find a way to replace them with people who want to be main landlords. I hope that addresses those two questions.