Mr. Maurice Deverell:

The Government could take away half of the regulations. As Ms McCormick stated earlier, the regulations are unbelievably complex. Not only do we have the 20-odd pages of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, we have the standards for a flat. In 2011, it was about 20 pages long. Now, the standards alone for what one must put into a flat are more than a 100 pages long. The regulations just keep coming. What has happened is that all the housing committees since 2004 keep adding amendments. The process must be restarted and rethought. That would make it so much better for renters and for landlords. There is no reason for it to be so complicated, but it is. That is one of the major issues.

Tax was mentioned earlier, which does not make it financially viable. Another issue is leaving the rent controls at 2%. If I let out a flat in 2015, at present I am getting what I let it out for plus about 11% or 12%. The increase can only be 2% or the HICP, which was 0.7% in 2025, for the rest of that tenancy's life or unless I can sell the place if I am a small landlord. From that point of view, in ten years' time, that rent is going to be far below the current level of rent. Inflation is not 0.7% in 2025. Milk used to be 75 cent a litre and it is now €1.25. Inflation has gone way up. We need to have a mechanism to bring the nearly 240,000 existing tenancies into the real world. That is how we get the existing landlords to stay. It is easier to keep existing landlords than it is to get new ones.