Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

As I said, the working group was expected to report by the end of June. It has asked for some additional time and its report will be published some time in July. I do not accept it was a knee-jerk reaction. It was a reaction by me to try to address some of the issues, such as the disquiet to which some people have referred regarding what they feel is a lack of transparency in the arbitration process and also the suggestion that some partial and misleading information is tendered regarding the rent review situation.

I know the Deputy said he spoke to some of his friends in the Law Library who had some query about the gangland legislation. I wonder whether he asked some of his friends in the Law Library about his party's proposed legislation on this matter, which was basically a sop that was not constitutionally or legally sound. We are all in the same page in having sympathy and understanding of the difficulties in the commercial sector but we can only pass legislation that is constitutionally sound. This Government banned upward only rent for leases, albeit from a particular date into the future.

We have clear legal advice on this from the Attorney General, and I hazard a guess that the Labour Party also has clear legal advice because its own Bill implicitly acknowledged that there was a significant problem in retrospective action for previous leases entered into freely by two parties. The State and the Oireachtas cannot by legislation intervene and rewrite contracts that were validly entered into by two individual third parties who no doubt were legally advised on entering those contracts.

The elephant in the room is that if the State and Oireachtas were allowed by legislation to intervene to change contracts, this could only be done on the basis of substantial compensation being paid to those disadvantaged by such action. The Labour Party did not in its Bill suggest that landlords as a group should be either collectively or individually recompensed for any loss arising from legislation brought forward by the Oireachtas. In the legislation it sponsored it proposed to give the Minister a regulation-making power without any indication as to how these regulations could be constitutionally sound.

I made it clear that we can deal with leases that will be entered into in future. I did this knowing full well that there would not be a significant effect on existing leases but it would send out a very strong signal to landlords that they should enter into renegotiation with tenants where there is difficulty. I have anecdotal evidence from around the country - although not necessarily from Dublin city centre - indicating that landlords have adopted a realistic approach on the basis that half a loaf is better than none. Instead of putting someone out of business, it is far better for such landlords to renegotiate the rent. We can only do so much in the Legislature and we should not mislead people.

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