John Cummins (Fine Gael)
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We have focused on the main thrust of the Bill. There are other heads of the Bill. Perhaps we could touch on heads 16, 18 and 19. Head 18 deals with efficiencies and reduces the requirement for 21 days' notice of a hearing to ten days' notice. The Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, IPAV, and the Irish Property Owners' Association, IPO, have contributed. We, as Members of the Oireachtas, engage with landlords and tenants on a variety of issues, as do local councillors, in the course of our duties on a daily basis. One of the key points that comes across from both sides is the slowness of the process. Given we are bringing forward this legislation, are there other opportunities to ensure that terminations are implemented quickly? Do we have the ability to do more in that respect in the context of the legislation we have here? The decision-making or dispute resolution system is slow and the committee has questioned representatives of the RTB about that. They have said they are working on efficiencies and so on and so forth. Even more of a bugbear is that at the other side of a determination, one could still be waiting for 12 months for that determination to be implemented. A landlord could be without rent for that entire period of time, as well as for the period of the dispute when he or she was unable to get back the property. Given that this is a residential tenancies Bill, are we doing enough? Is there scope to do more in that respect?