Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

I look forward to his response when we are finished. Let us be clear. That is what we are asking citizens to figure out and if they do it wrong, they will be afraid - we will come to the question of the sanction - that they will make a wrong declaration. I appreciate that the Minister of State has indicated that plain English will be used and that the RTB will be involved. However, it would have been much more sensible if he accepted the points made and the amendment, which states that we should let the RTB, which is expert in this, categorise it and not put a new scary document in front of people for them to sign that they are not sure of and who are already scared because of Covid-19. This has not been thought through. I urge him, if it is possible to do so, to commence other parts of this Bill and not to push the declaration aspect. I ask him to not commence elements of this section. If that cannot be done, the senior Minister needs to assign staff resources to deal with this, not just have an online campaign. Will extra staff be hired? Will there be staff in county council foyers who people can meet and who will help them complete these forms and declarations, particularly as people will be afraid?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2020-07-31/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-07-31