Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will speak on amendments Nos. 13 to 15, inclusive. If the change proposed in amendment No. 13 was implemented, it would unravel the structure of the 2004 Act, which is built around the concept of the security of tenure protection applying only for the six-year duration of the Part 4 or the further Part 4 tenancy cycles. It is the Government's policy to move towards tenancies of indefinite duration. How that can happen has to be worked out carefully from a legal perspective with the Attorney General. This work will have to take place in the context of the second rental Bill which I spoke about earlier. That Bill will go to pre-legislative scrutiny in the fourth quarter of this year. That is how we intend to deal with the matter. This amendment, unfortunately, will not deal with it in the way that is required.

Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 seek to remove the intention to sell the dwelling as a tenancy termination ground, to amend the vacant possession requirement for substantial refurbishment works as a termination ground, and to limit the termination ground relating to the need for occupation by a family member to spouses, civil partners and children of the landlord. The amendments to the table in section 34 of the 2004 Act, which are in this Bill, which make it more difficult to cite falsely any of the grounds in that table and include any such invalid citation as improper conduct for the purposes of the new Part 7A, which we discussed on Committee Stage and that is being inserted by this Bill, and which measures empower the RTB in this way to sanction the landlord and to undertake the new process we have, will achieve the policy objectives we want to achieve and in a way that will have a meaningful impact for tenants who might be at risk of some of those citations being made on false grounds. I therefore cannot accept the amendments before us.

Amendment No. 15 is a further change to what the Government proposed on Committee Stage. What we are proposing here is different. It requires the copying of termination notices to the RTB for the purposes of its functions with regard to its new sanctioning provisions under Part 7A in respect of improper conduct on the part of landlords. The amendment inserted on Committee Stage required the termination notice to be copied to the RTB in advance of the expiry of the notice period, but the RTB has since indicated that it would be more effective and manageable for it to be copied with notice of tenancy terminations after the notice period has expired. In this way the RTB can use such notices for the purposes of identifying improper conduct for sanctioning. We discussed the notice being sent when the notice was served by the landlord to the tenant. Now the RTB thinks it will be more effective in terms of doing the work it needs to do regarding landlords who are improperly using this ground if it were the case that, after the tenant has vacated or not vacated, depending on the circumstances, the RTB would have to be notified and then could conduct an inspection if it thought it was necessary.

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