Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is welcome that we are taking Second Stage of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill 2013 today. It is long-awaited legislation and I know that it will receive a broad welcome from everyone in the House, as it did in the Dáil. I know that we will have a full debate on it.

I also welcome today's announcement of the new package of housing measures to give some rent certainty to tenants. It has just been published and is entitled, Stabilising Rents: Boosting Supply. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, has described it as a significant overhaul of tenants' rights. I know that colleagues will very much welcome that we will see real protections for tenants, in particular, an increase in the rent review period to two years. There must be at least 24 months between all rent reviews. Therefore, if somebody has had his or her rent increased in 2015, he or sh e will not see another increase until 2017. That will be inserted in legislation. As has been heralded, we will also see a requirement for landlords to sign a statutory declaration of intent to sell to avoid any abuse of procedures in raising rent. We will see new procedures in dealing with rent arrears. We will also see some tax relief measures to assist landlords and increases in some of the housing assistance payment limits. It is a really welcome package of measures and some doubted if it could be put in place. Senator Aideen Hayden, in particular, staunchly said for some time that we would see a decent, adequate and effective package of measures put in place. It is welcome that we have it today. I hope we will have an opportunity to debate these measures in more detail once we have had a chance to absorb the measures to be put in place, noting, of course, that nearly one in five families is in private rented accommodation and that, therefore, we need an overhaul of the private rental sector.

I certainly welcomed the establishment of the commission of investigation into IBRC transactions, about which issues had been raised in the other House. The issue that has come to the fore puts the spotlight on the 2004 Act. The difficulty is that there was no better mechanism to carry out the inquiry that needed to be carried out into these transactions. The net point that has arisen concerns a difference of legal view on whether the commission has the power to overrule the confidentiality of documents in the public interest of disclosure. Mr. Justice Brian Cregan is reported as having accepted the legal view of the special liquidators for IBRC that there was no such express power. It has certainly been reported that he accepts that there is an inherent power to conduct a balancing exercise for the chairperson of the commission.Indeed, the Department of Finance and the former Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC, directors and management apparently have legal advice to that effect, namely, that the commission does have the power to override implicitly. We should recall that the process of commissions of investigation was set up in 2004 to replace the costly and cumbersome tribunals of inquiry. Previous commissions have been hugely successful in inquiring into delicate and sensitive matters around, for example, child sex abuse in institutions, and have navigated the balance of interests in these procedures. Of course, any commission of investigation is always subject to legal challenge by individuals who may be affected. I would urge a word of caution to those rushing to judgment. I do not believe there was an alternative mechanism that could have been put in place to effectively investigate these transactions. I believe the commission of investigation is the right method. Nobody can rule out the prospect of individuals taking a legal challenge to any commission of investigation.