Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I would be loth to criminalise the giving of incentives regarding leases because that, in effect, would be to criminalise contractual discussions and negotiations between two people who have free will and are probably well advised. I suggest that criminalising that type of activity, even though people might not be too happy with it, would be very detrimental to the property market, which is in difficult circumstances as it is. To introduce criminal sanction in that respect would make matters even more difficult.

I have been looking at the property pages over the last while and I know from own area that many landlords renegotiated substantial reductions with tenants, but that did not seem to happen in certain parts of Dublin. Nonetheless, it happened elsewhere in the country. I accept that for whatever reasons landlords were not willing to reduce the rents, but by and large the vast majority of them did because half a loaf is better than none. They are better off getting something from tenants, if not the full rent. However, there may be other issues involved. Bank institutions, in particular, for example, would require the rent as originally intended.

Regarding legislation, the Labour Party introduced a Bill and we looked very carefully at it and at senior counsel opinion produced by one of the organisations involved in this area. I went back, time and again, to the Office of the Attorney General and spoke to him about this on many occasions. It boils down ultimately to the fact that the Oireachtas cannot intervene in a contract previously made between two individuals, who no doubt were independently advised. It would be totally unconstitutional for us to pass an Act on that basis. If that were the case we could re-write every contract made by private individuals right across the country. The Attorney General's office has looked into the minutiae of this and concluded that we could not retrospectively change contracts previously entered into.

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