Mr. Niall Byrne:

I am happy to comment on that. The RTB is not a full service regulator for the residential rental sector as currently configured. We have come from the legacy of the old Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB. It started small and was not seen to have enormous public importance. As the Deputy mentioned, the rental sector was not seen as a major issue back in 2004 when the PRTB was established. We are now in a dramatically different situation.

I have been in this role since the start of 2022 and I am still surprised by some of the things I come across as regards expectations of the RTB and the reality of what it is authorised to do. We can only do what we are authorised to do, although is it important that we operate to the full extent of our remit and that we push the envelope out to the maximum extent. However, there is a limit beyond which we cannot go. We are not a full service regulator. I would welcome that development.

We have a commitment in our strategy to work with the Department on the current legislation, which could be streamlined in everyone's interests. Lots of requirements fall on the RTB. People think regulatory burden is all about the regulated sector but regulators are often tied up in huge amounts of regulatory burden. We call it "grey tape" rather than "red tape". I am bound by many provisions that do not necessarily help me to regulate the sector or make the RTB as effective as it could be.

Thinking about it from a broad policy perspective, the private residential rental sector now provides an essential public service, not something optional that people use for a while when they live in a bedsit in Rathmines when they come to Dublin first, as I did when I first started work. The expectation was that they would not live in the bedsit in Rathmines forever. Now we are in a very different situation. People use the sector long term. Data from research we conducted recently show that many tenants now expect to live in the rented residential sector for long periods, such as ten and 20 years. It is now viewed differently. My point, from a broad policy perspective, is that it is now an essential public service. It is not a private matter in the way it was 20 or 30 years ago. From a regulatory standpoint, essential public services, broadly speaking, should be regulated in the public interest in a fair, reasonable and proportionate way. That is an argument for better regulation in the sector than we have at the moment. For example, there is no regulation whatsoever of the rent-a-room scheme. There is surely a strong argument to introduce regulation there in the public interest because that is an environment within which all kinds of exploitation can happen. I hasten to add that I do not make policy, but on what the RTB could do if it were in a position to be that kind of full service regulator, it would not only be about data, or about us being a passive registration body; it would also be about us being an active and proactive element of the sector.

We would exercise control in the public interest and support the good landlords. I know from talking to landlords, as I am sure many members do, that the good landlords want the RTB, or someone, to deal with the deviant ones.