Results 3,301-3,320 of 16,849 for speaker:Dermot Ahern

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: Local authorities are their own arbiters in the letting of their housing stock. They are not relevant to this legislation which relates to private housing stock.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: This amendment is intended to clarify the meaning of "property services employer". It is intended to ensure a company or partnership which employs principal officers to provide property services will nonetheless be classified as property service employers.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: This is a drafting amendment. Amendment agreed to.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: The Bill provides that the regulatory authority, appeal board and the courts may in certain circumstances suspend or revoke a licence. The licensee may, however, have more than one licence. Amendment No. 11 clarifies that the authority, the appeal board and the courts have discretion to revoke or suspend one, some or all of the licensee's licences, as appropriate. Amendments Nos. 41, 52,...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: This is a drafting amendment.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: Amendment No. 13 makes two important changes to section 3. First, it moves the exclusion from the scope of the Bill of the property services provided by local authorities in the performance of their statutory functions to section 3 which already contains other exclusions. That is the purpose of amendment No. 7. Second, it inserts a new provision in section 3 to clarify that an employee...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: This amendment inserts a new section in the Bill to clarify an aspect of how a licensing system will operate in practice. Subsections (1) and (2) provide that a principal officer or employee who has a licence to provide a particular property service can only provide that service for a property service employer who has a licence to provide the same type of service. Subsection (3) provides...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: These changes to section 9 are, to a large extent, in response to suggestions made in the Second Stage debate. The revised subsection (3) sets out in greater detail the matters to be taken into account when the members are being appointed to the board of the authority. The new subsection (4) specifies that three members of the authority must be representatives of the property services...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: Subsection (3) states the Minister shall have regard to the desirability of their having knowledge or experience of consumer affairs, business, finance, management or administration or any other subject which would be of assistance. It is accepted that we will include people in the board who represent consumer interests, have financial expertise and so forth. The reason we propose three...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: The number of three representatives is specifically referred to in the amendment. This is to ensure the representatives of property services providers would not be in the majority. We were responding to the views expressed in this House on Second Stage that under the existing drafting of the Bill, it would be possible for people to be put on the authority to bring about a situation where...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: We were responding to the views expressed that in the original drafting it could be the case that a majority could consist of representatives of property service providers or of those with their interests at heart. This is the reason this amendment contains the reference to representatives of persons who provide property services and to the number of three. I am prepared to come back on...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: I do not want the legislation to be prescriptive in appointing someone from a specified representative association for consumers. In all legislation it is preferable to keep references to the composition of boards as vague as possible. In various Ministries I had the experience of asking representative bodies to nominate individuals for appointment to boards only to find my hands were tied...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: I refer to the philosophy of the party the Senator represents. Although she has denied responsibility for several days, we still do not know where she stands on the Croke Park agreement.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: The Senator's leader does not.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: Perhaps the Senator should conduct a little exercise and check. She might be surprised.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: Absolutely not.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: The Senator finished well but started badly because she was being political.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: I do not wish to labour the point, but I recall having to beg the trade unions and employers to change their nominees to one high profile board from males to females because there was little scope to change other nominations. My experience has been that the trade union movement has not covered itself in glory in making nominations to boards. I accept that the Senator is not suggesting we...

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: These are merely technical amendments. Amendment agreed to. Government amendment No. 20: In page 29, subsection (3)(a), line 16, before "the" to insert "identifying or specifying". Amendment agreed to. Government amendment No. 21: In page 29, subsection (3)(b), line 17, before "the" where it firstly occurs to insert "specifying". Amendment agreed to.

Seanad: Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009: Committee Stage. (21 Apr 2010)

Dermot Ahern: The idea behind codes of practice is to provide guidance to people generally. That is the way it is specifically in this case. I would not like to be the prosecutors going before a judge in a court suggesting they would make a criminal of somebody who has not observed a code of practice the purpose of which is merely to provide guidelines to the people involved in this legislation to ensure...