Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if the Minister is familiar with what happens when a rent review process commences. Decent landlords will often tell people significantly in advance that for one reason or another, they intend to increase the rent. In anybody's understanding, that is the beginning of a rent review process.

3 o’clock

However, the Minister is tagging onto this a legal framework. I do not know whether the Minister is aware that at present people can then go to the Private Residential Tenancies Board and argue about when the review should commence. It will often state people have an extra one, two or three months, which it can do under the legislation. For one reason or another, it may negotiate that instead of a €300 a month increase, it will knock off €200 or more. The Minister has thrown this into total doubt. People are coming to us because the Minister is encouraging landlords who are not in designated areas. Many of these landlords are very decent and may want to keep their tenancies, but their agents, the media, the landlords' associations and everyone else are saying that they should grab their chance now and increase or they will forever lose the chance to increase rent. The Minister is causing massive confusion for people who are very fearful of what landlords will do. If a landlord states, as he or she often does, that they will have to increase the rent in several months, it is informal, but in the note he read out the Minister referred to the moment negotiations start. When do people go to the PRTB? Do they go to the PRTB immediately? Do they look for extra time before the increase comes in? Do they look for a reduction in the amount of the increase requested? This is what is happening in people's lives.

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