Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State for introducing this emergency legislation. He provided an extremely good outline of the good work done by the Private Residential Tenancies Board. The fact that we have a register of all landlords is a good development. As the Minister of State indicated, however, there are few difficulties among landlords and tenants and fewer than 1% of all registered tenancies seek to avail of the PRTB's dispute resolution mechanisms. This is evidence of the success of the existing legislation and also of the fact that landlords and tenants are getting on well.

Despite what I have said, an anomaly has been identified in the existing legislation. It is right the Minister of State has introduced the Bill before us to correct the position. He has acted speedily to ensure the proper legislation will be in place to allow the PRTB to operate correctly. When an anomaly such as that to which I refer is identified, it is important the Government should state it got matters wrong and that it must take action to correct the position. That is what the Minister of State is doing with this Bill.

I commend this emergency legislation to the House. The Minister of State has assured Members that, when necessary, he will deal with any future anomalies that may arise. I thank him for providing that assurance and I support the legislation.