Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I am, and I thank the Chair. I want to ask the RTB a question. I have met different landlords who are very upset around the registration process. They are really distraught and doing their absolute level best to get themselves registered. They feel they are facing brick walls. Some of them who have multiple interactions with the RTB. They send their form in and it gets sent back. This goes on repeatedly for weeks and months, with different emails and phone calls. They cannot manage to talk to a human being, so they can get this sorted. Is this something the RTB is aware of, and what is it doing to address it?

I will give one recent example. An agent for a landlord was on to me about this. The RTB was not accepting the registration from the landlord because there was no personal public service number, PPSN, provided. The landlord has explained to the RTB that they do not have a PPSN. They simply do not have one as they are not resident in Ireland and they are not Irish. The RTB is failing to accept the landlord's registration because they have not provided the PPSN. This is going back and forth endlessly, causing huge stress. Why are the RTB's systems not working and why are some landlords being put through these processes that just seem to be preventing them from registering, when they are trying their level best to do so? Why can they not talk to someone who can actually sort these things out? Why are there multiple communications without the ability to sort this out, or for it to be understood or resolved? Why keep sending back forms? The RTB just says it is incomplete, when the person has explained why a particular field might be incomplete and has given a good, valid reason for it. They send it back in and it just keeps coming back marked incomplete. This is certainly a problem for some landlords.