Mr. Brendan Heneghan:

I am the treasurer of my residents' association. We are trying increasingly to get people to pay their subscriptions directly to the bank. Members will be aware that the banks allow 16 characters. What we want to know is that the resident of 88 Parkmore Drive is the member, as far as we are concerned, rather than Mr. Brendan Heneghan. The bank can only capture an address.

There are loads of practical difficulties. If I submitted a list of 200 members of my residents' association and someone dies, the developer could well say the person is dead and cannot be a member, so we end up in the High Court or Supreme Court. The same would happen if we were to mistranscribe an envelope or did not list someone and somebody else were to figure that out. I have about 300 members in my association if partners are included. I do not see what the use of having a list of 300 people would be. It is a major problem for me to put the list together and the large number would get in the way of working online. Undoubtedly, people would be horrified that their names would appear in planning appeals. If we told members of the association that this had to happen, they would probably say they no longer wanted to be a member of the residents' association. I believe it is a stupid provision and Ms Foster will probably confirm what I am saying.