Seanad debates

Thursday, 5 June 2008

Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2006: Report and Final Stages

 

1:00 pm

Photo of Alex WhiteAlex White (Labour)

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 30, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following:

"(2) Where a tenant has, prior to the passing of this Act, effected a renunciation as referred to in subsection (1), the tenant shall be deemed not to be entitled to a new lease for a period of 20 years, and any lease for a shorter period effected on foot of such renunciation shall be deemed to be valid.".

This issue arose because of a particular case drawn to my attention. The amendment proposed by us is designed to ensure renunciations of the right to a new lease made pending the passing of the Act would be recognised as valid. Otherwise, some tenants would have their tenancies terminated and hardship might be caused.

On Committee Stage, the Minister objected and said that the amendment would discriminate unfairly between persons who made a renunciation before or after a particular date, which is a fair point. In those circumstances, we have changed the amendment to delete the reference to a particular date, as the Minister of State will see. On that occasion, the Minister also objected to the idea of retrospective legislation. Rather than being retrospective legislation, and I know that Senator Regan addressed this on the previous occasion, it is more in the way of a validating amendment. It is designed to validate and give effect to what the parties referred to actually intended, which was that there would be a renunciation. I cannot see how that would be a breach of anyone's rights.

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