Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the representatives from the RTB for appearing before the committee and for the information they provided. I want to ask about the cohort of landlords who are not registered with the RTB and who may be in breach of legislation or standards or may have complaints made against them. When a complaint is made against them, the RTB will not investigate if the tenant or renter does not have proof of the landlord's address. That is a very high threshold for renters to meet. In most cases, renters will not have the landlord's address. The landlord does not usually provide that. In the instance where the renter does manage to find the address of the landlord, that can take months of work and be very hard to do. That process means most renters will give up rather than pursue the complaint. If they meet that threshold, however, what threshold of proof does the RTB seek for proof of address of a landlord? What does it find acceptable? What will it not accept? I ask because it is a real issue that is affecting renters when they engage with the RTB. They are coming up against difficulties on this.