Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I understand the motivation behind the amendment. We want people to continue to use the free mediation services of the RTB which has no intention of charging for them at any time in the near future. However, it is prudent to include this provision in the legislation in case it becomes necessary to use it at some point in the future, but no one is planning on invoking or using it following the changes we will make today. The advice is that it is important to have it in place for the RTB as part of the change management programme that is under way. At the beginning of September or October in 2017, having engaged with the RTB and others, a period of change began for the RTB to enable it to move from being a residential tenancies board to being a rent sector regulator to robustly defend the rights of tenants and landlords alike. When we look at the increase in funding in the budget for the RTB to hire more staff and inspectors, the legal changes to enable the RTB to make inspections independent of complaints being made, the new sanctioning regime that has been put in place to deal with some of the new abuses identified in Part 7A, they are all designed to move the RTB into the space where it can become a modern regulator in a modern rental sector. While it is not the intention of the RTB to charge a mediation service fee any time soon, it is part of the structural change we are trying to make to the RTB in looking ahead to what we may see in ten years' time or further on.