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

In the budget for this year we increased Exchequer funding by 67% for the RTB to allow for inspections to be done by the RTB and local authorities. Under the Bill, we are bringing about this new concept of an authorised officer and a decision-maker. The RTB will be able to hire people to be investigators, essentially, and we provided money in the budget for the board to do that. A lot of the work that is done between me and the RTB, which will not necessarily be seen, involves trying to work with the board as part of a change management programme. One of my first engagements when I took up this office was with the RTB, asking the board what it needed to police the sector properly. Since then we have worked both from a budgetary and a policy point of views to try to give all of those resources to the board. The RTB has the funding and authorisation to hire people. This will be the new system in which it will be working. This is something that is going to continue into future budgets to make sure that the RTB, as we give it more powers, can fund the resources it needs to do this work. I cannot recall whether the new positions have been advertised. All of those things are being worked on to make sure that the RTB can spend the money it has been given.