John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill, which gives an opportunity to make some points about housing and rent subsidies. It is an area that has changed dramatically in recent years. The legislation needs to work for tenants to ensure renting is a safe, stable and secure way to get living accommodation, and this Bill moves in that direction. Sometimes we introduce Bills but then we find it very difficult to get the resources required to implement the provisions of such legislation. I hope the Minister of State will be in a position to ensure the Private Residential Tenancies Board is fully resourced in the future because it seems to be under-resourced at present, resulting in delays in making decisions.

As the Minister of State said, the Bill's aims are to speed up the resolution service provided by the PRTB by encouraging mediation and bringing the voluntary and co-operative housing sector under the governance of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. I ask the Minister of State to explain how that will happen because I find that many of the voluntary and co-operative organisations are stand-alone and independent and make their own decisions with regard to rent and how they run their organisations. We always found it very difficult to get a handle on how they operated in the past. I am sure the Minister of State is working with these organisations to ensure they are on board.

The Irish rental market has changed dramatically in recent years. Local authorities are no longer building houses, which is strange considering the Labour Party is in government. The Minister of State might clarify whether she will have any allocation in 2013 for local authorities to build houses.

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