Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 29 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Recent Trends in the Private Rental Sector: Residential Tenancies Board

Mr. Tom Dunne:

There is a couple of issues I am picking up here. The first involves separating out the issues around registration where somebody should be able to ring up and tell the board they are having difficulty dealing with the registration, there are complexities they do not understand and they need help. As Mr. Byrne said, there is an awful lot of work going on in the board to deal with that. The board cannot get involved where a landlord has a dispute with a tenant, rings up and starts asking questions about that. The board is the dispute resolution authority and has to be seen to be clinical about that. Parties make their case to the boards. I should point out it is not the board, Mr. Byrne or me; it is independent decision-makers who receive the information and make a judgment on a dispute using the law, precedent and jurisprudence.