Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Durkan stated the dispute resolution system does not work and I must say I concur absolutely with this sentiment. The difficulty I have is that it will not work as a result of this Bill either. I have no objection to the provisions of the Bill in principle, and I support it in so far as it goes, but my difficulty is that it does not go very far. This is now a vital area of the economy.

The 2004 Act was pioneering legislation, introduced at a time when the only recourse for people in rental disputes was the courts. This was fine for multi-million commercial tenancies but not appropriate for the private rented sector. The 2004 Act set out to establish a cheaper and supposedly speedier alternative system through which people could have their problems resolved quickly. It also set out to provide a certain security of tenure to tenants and to outline in as clear terms as possible the obligations of landlords. As with any pioneering legislation we were aware when we prepared it that it might not work in practice, and that its implementation would certainly give rise to certain difficulties we were not able to foresee at the time of drafting because it was a radical departure. In light of this we decided the legislation would be reviewed after five years. The review was put in place as promised and it was clear certain aspects of the legislation were not working as intended.

In addition to this, there had been a substantial change in the reality of what we were dealing with in the interim period. In 2006, 323,000 people were in private rental accommodation. This figure jumped dramatically to almost 500,000 last year, which was an increase of almost 50%. At present, approximately one in five people occupying houses are renting privately. This is a sea change. The context for this is that one in five mortgages are under water. Obviously the private residential tenancy sector will grow, and reference has been made to the buy to rent scheme which is not working. I hope the Government will manage to get it off the ground fairly quickly because many people come to me under the illusion it is working. It is not working and it is not an option. Inevitably the private residential tenancy sector will increase because of the difficulties we have with mortgage arrears.

We are trying to amend complex legislation to make the system simpler and more user-friendly while the market segment in question is growing. If the Bill is the response to this, I find it extremely disappointing. The Bill changes the name of the Private Presidential Tenancies Board to the residential tenancies board. This is hardly radical. It reduces membership of the board from 15 to 12 so we will have fewer jobs for the boys, which is fine, but I do not see what it will do for landlords, tenants or the sector as a whole. It will reduce the quorum for board meetings from five to four. My goodness, I am underwhelmed. It reduces the dispute cooling off period from 21 days to ten days. This is welcome but hardly a radical departure.

One aspect of the Bill which will have consequences, but I suspect not the consequences in the draftsman had in mind when the Bill was being drafted, is that it extends the jurisdiction of the Private Residential Tenancies Act 2004 to the voluntary and co-operative housing sector. This means its remit has been extended. Any studies and reports I have read indicate this will involve a substantially increased volume of work, which will obviously require an increase in resources. I understand not only are resources not being increased but they are actually being reduced. Therefore, as Deputy Durkan stated, the procedure is not working largely because of intolerable delays which are not the fault of the PRTB but due to a lack of resources while the number of clients and cases are increasing, and we will unilaterally add new work to the case load and reduce the resources available to deal with it. This does not make the slightest bit of sense. I agree that on paper and in principle it is good that the Private Residential Tenancies Board should deal with the community and voluntary sector, but if it does not have the resources to deal with what it has already and those resources are being reduced, it is an insane move.

The review of the 2004 Act showed difficulties and intricacies in the legislation governing this area. These intricacies, difficulties and ambiguities are being allowed to remain almost as they were. The rules for the determination of tenancies are extremely difficult and ambiguous. It is a quagmire. There is nothing I can see, from the start to the finish of the Bill, to help explain, clarify or simplify them. At present the procedures are unwieldy and they do not facilitate easy and fast outcomes. I can see nothing in the Bill, or in how the Private Presidential Tenancies Board is being restructured, that will improve these procedures. The procedures will be even more lengthy and equally convoluted and complicated. We need a scheme to facilitate speedy outcomes. We need a scheme which is speedy, efficient, cheap and user-friendly. There is no suggestion of this in the Bill.

We also have the running sore of anti-social behaviour, and there is nothing to deal with it in the Bill. I will return to this subject. I do not know what is the Government's intention with regard to one of the big problems in this area, namely, deposit retention. There is nothing in the Bill about deposit retention schemes. I understand that when the Bill was published last July, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, stated the Government would deal with it, presumably by way of an amendment.

This is a fundamental area. There is a simple system operating in the United Kingdom. I agree with Deputy Durkan that some of the practices we have imported from the United Kingdom are not conducive to this country - they are not even conducive to the country in which they are being operated - and they should be discontinued. However, I have read of the procedure in the United Kingdom and it seems to be an efficient one that would instantly solve, in so far as it can be solved, the problem of deposit retention. It is inexplicable that the Government could publish legislation in July, indicate its intention to add this to it and, six months later, when we are debating Second Stage of the Bill as published, we still do not know what its proposals are in this regard-----

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