Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Both amendments are reasonable and I hope the Minister will accept them in these closing minutes of the Report and Final Stages of this Bill. I will speak specifically to amendment No. 16. Some private landlords are in receipt of what can only be seen as a bounty through the supports from the rent allowance scheme. While they are enjoying these supports provided through public moneys, and getting redress with regard to whatever claims they can present through their inventive accountants, many are not registered as landlords with the Private Residential Tenancies Board. This shows a patent disregard for the law. The requirement is clearly there. It is important we ensure there is compliance through the introduction of the measures which amendment No. 16 seeks to achieve and that it becomes compulsory that landlords meet all the requirements, including registration, before benefitting in any way, at any level, either within the taxation code or through the supplementary welfare Acts.

I listened to what Deputy Burton said. Sadly, it is all a reality. She spoke of a new landlord class being bred, and that seems to be so. We have traditionally known of the poor standard of much of the accommodation being let, of appalling conditions, not only in rented accommodation in our cities but in many of our rural towns through the years. Much of that accommodation was deemed inappropriate and local authorities regularly threatened not to assess people coming from those properties for local authority housing, saying that because of the state of repair of those flats, or whatever one would call them, they were beyond safe, habitable use. From a number of surveys we know today that this abuse is now being visited on our new immigrant brothers and sisters, our new neighbours of colour in different parts of the island. This is a further reprehensible abuse by people who have traditionally shown no regard for their neighbours and the needs of their respective communities. Now they are showing even less regard for people coming to our country from other parts of the world.

Strong measures must be introduced to ensure compliance and to ensure the standards required are enforced. I commend amendment No. 16 to the Minister and hope he will give us some small return for the effort put in this evening.

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