Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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553. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide additional funding to the Residential Tenancies Board to allow it to recruit additional adjudicators and mediators in 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30519/21]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) was established as an independent statutory body under the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004-2021 to operate a national tenancy registration system and to facilitate the resolution of disputes between landlords and tenants. Since 2004, the RTB has replaced the courts in dealing with the majority of disputes between landlords and tenants through its Dispute Resolution Service. This service offers a choice of resolution types to parties – mediation or adjudication, with the option to appeal the outcome to a tenancy tribunal.

The service provided by the RTB is quasi-judicial and all of their mediators, adjudicators and tribunal members have independent decision-making powers, in the same way as judges have within the Court system. To ensure impartiality, transparency and fairness, adjudicators are independently appointed and they undertake their functions in an autonomous capacity.

Section 164 of the Residential Tenancies Acts governs the appointment or engagement of Mediators and Adjudicators. It clearly states it is for the Board and the Board alone to appoint Mediators and Adjudicators. A recruitment process for new panel members has just completed and the RTB will be appointing new members to a panel of adjudicators and to a panel of mediators to perform the roles of Adjudicator and Mediator, as required, for a period of up to 5 years with discretion to extend this period if required. The RTB will appoint such numbers of adjudicators and mediators to the adjudicator and mediator panels as it believes appropriate having regard to the estimated need for adjudicators and mediators and the geographic distribution and location of cases that arise.

These appointments will be made in accordance with the Order of Merit established of candidates who are deemed qualified following the selection process. As the need for additional adjudicator and mediator panel members arises, successful candidates will be drawn down from the Order of Merit in accordance with the ranking order and offered an appointment to the adjudicators and or mediators panel as appropriate.

An additional €2M Exchequer funding was secured in 2020 to reflect the expansion of the RTB’s core functions as a result of new powers and functions conferred on the RTB in 2019 Act. In order to ensure that the RTB is fully resourced to deliver on its ever increasing mandate, I secured a further additional €2M under the 2021 Estimates process to bring the RTB’s Exchequer funding for operational costs in 2021 to €11M.

My Department continues to engage with the RTB to guarantee that it has the funds and staffing that is required to carry out its role as a regulator of the rental sector.