Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 1138: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the reason responsibility for the property price database is being afforded to three separate bodies, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to compile, the Property Services Regulatory Authority to publish it and the Revenue Commissioners to provide the information when the PSRA already has central repositories of the relevant information, in the Land Registry from 1891 and in the Registry of Deeds from 1707; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33166/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009 provides for establishment of the Property Services Regulatory Authority. While the primary functions of the Authority will include operation of a licensing system for property services providers and the investigation of complaints arising from the provision of property services by such providers, the legislation also gives the Authority a role in promoting consumer protection and protecting the best interests of users and potential users of property services.

In the Renewed Programme for Government agreed last year, the Government recognises that the lack of transparency in the property market, including the lack of reliable sales prices in the case of residential property and accurate information on market rents and other terms, including rent review clauses, in the case of commercial leases, is an impediment to consumer protection and needs to be tackled. I intend, therefore, to bring forward amendments to the Property Services (Regulation) Bill in due course to give the new Authority the statutory function of publishing details of both residential sales prices and commercial leases, including rent review clauses. In order to be useful, this data must be both reliable and up-to-date. For this reason, it is intended that details which, under existing stamp duty legislation, must be supplied to the Revenue Commissioners for stamp duty purposes within 30 days following the sale or lease of property will be made available to the Property Services Regulatory Authority for publication. Publication will ensure the required level of market transparency and meet the needs of statutory and other bodies involved in tracking market trends and compiling statistical data on the property market.

The primary purpose of the Property Registration Authority is to promote and extend the registration of ownership of land and I am pleased that the Authority has made very significant progress in this area since its establishment in 2006. As regards the availability of price data, I understand that while it had been the practice to publish details of prices when a sale or lease transaction was entered in the Land Register, that practice was discontinued many years ago. Moreover, while the registration of leases of over 21 years is compulsory in all counties except Dublin and Cork, commercial leases are normally of much shorter duration. The Property Registration Authority would not therefore be in a position to supply useful data in respect of the commercial property market.