Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I am grateful to the Minister for that response and apologise for my vagueness in raising it. I knew I had seen it somewhere. I believed it was in the programme for Government and I am glad to hear discussions are ongoing with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. I am aware that among consumer groups and the general public there is an enormous demand for this information to be made available and it might play a major role in freeing the housing market in some way. It would have many public benefits. As the Minister said, section 59 would facilitate its publication. That is the reason it came to my mind when I looked again at the section. I would like to be able to table an amendment on the matter on Report Stage and would be grateful if the Minister took advice on it between now and then. Up until now there has not been a clear way of organising such publication because there has not been a property services regulation authority. Once the authority is in place and this obligation to retain records is placed on licensees, it seems there will not be a practical obstacle to ensuring house price data are published.