Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

It is always good to see the Fine Gael Party make sound and decent proposals that Members on each side of the House are agreed upon. I compliment the party on its worthy proposal that the PRTB should be given additional powers. There are two other means that could be used to achieve better results in the private rented sector. Much clearer housing guidelines are needed. The residential density guidelines are being revised and could be used to give a much clearer model on how to build decent housing in the 21st century. Considering the standard of housing, the bar is very low and must be pulled up. In assessing planning applications, the advice notes to planning authorities should be taken into consideration. Again, they are under revision as the current ones date from 20 years ago. I hope the guidelines will give clarity to the conditions that planners will put on planning decisions.

The enormous bias is in favour of development when design and quality standards need to be raised. Much junk is being built, especially in the apartment sector. They are not up to scratch and the planning authorities are not holding the line. There is an onus on the Minister to improve matters in this regard. There are many cheaply built and expensively sold dwellings. A large gap exists between the visions in the property pages of the national newspapers and the reality. Members will be aware of this from the complaints they receive about noise insulation, dampness and poorly finished estates and apartments. We need to grasp that point and ensure that standards are higher. There is a sea of mediocrity in design that will build up problems in years to come.

Building regulations are not being enforced and I do not think the Minister knows what is going on in that respect. When I asked him how many prosecutions had been brought against developers, all he could tell me was that three years ago 88 cases were taken but he had no details of what parts of the building regulations had been infringed. Did they concern accessibility issues for people with disabilities or were fire or hygiene regulations infringed? The Minister did not have the relevant statistics. There is a real lacuna there because neither the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern — I am glad he is with us — nor the senior Minister knows where the problems arise. They might relate to thermal comfort, accessibility or hygiene but we do not know. Unless we get to the root of those problems we will not make much progress in confronting such issues. Tenants raise these issues with their management companies which, as Fine Gael has pointed out, are sometimes not sufficiently representative of tenants' interests. Much needs to be done in this regard.

The Private Residential Tenancies Board should be given a mandate to examine the wide range of issues a tenant requires, whether that includes thermal comfort, accessibility, heat, light or other issues. Currently, all they do is tick the box when one registers with them. They simply put down on paper the fact that a landlord has registered but that does not go far enough. The State should have a strong, ongoing role to ensure that tenants are living in, and owners are providing, decent accommodation. That is not happening at the moment. There is a lot of mediocrity and a failure to enforce the building regulations properly. The Bill is heading in the right direction and we in the Green Party support it.

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