Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Senator Humphreys. This is an important issue. We have been working on this Bill for months in the housing committee and I have some concerns about it. We spoke today about the different amendments. The Minister spoke about the regulations, the Revenue Commissioners and approved housing bodies or AHBs. There are 30,000 AHB properties and the Minister wants all of them to be registered with the Residential Tenancies Board. That will cause problems. There are also 6,000 volunteers involved. This process will not work. There are issues with this Bill, which I have discussed previously with the Minister. My main issue is with the registration of AHB properties every year, as they already register every year with the housing regulator. There is much confusion in this Bill and issues such as this need to be sorted out. It is not possible or realistic for AHBs to register 30,000 properties every year with the RTB.