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

I thank the Deputy for the follow-up question. The RTB has confirmed that a number of cases related to the question have been referred through its independent dispute resolution processes and are still ongoing. The RTB replaces the courts for the majority of landlord and tenant disputes and it is important that all parties are afforded due process in order to ensure that the system of dispute resolution is legally robust. I am precluded from interfering with the judicial nature of the RTB, just like it would be improper for me to interfere with planning applications or planning decisions. What I will say to the Deputy is that the reforms we brought forward to protect tenants were not my laws, they were the laws of this Oireachtas, and they could only be passed if they had the majority support of the Oireachtas because the Government is in the minority. These are ambitious reforms to protect tenants who find themselves in this difficult situation. We have strengthened those protections and we have talked about banning sales and vacant possession before and how that would not be a solution because it would still allow the person who is buying the property to then serve a notice to quit. All that is being done is to displace the problem from one landlord to a new buyer, to someone else without solving it. With the protections we have brought in, we are trying to make sure that tenants have the strongest rights possible so that where there may be a breach of those rights, they can find resolution through the RTB, and find it quickly, and where those rights are upheld, that they have access back to the property they have been evicted from.

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