Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31 ============================================================ Peter Burke (FG), Longford-Westmeath I thank Senator Higgins and other Senators for their responses. This is a key issue in terms of public health considerations whereby one has to weigh and balance them against the right to have a transparent public process. I fully appreciate that that is a major concern. However, public hearings are not suspended, they are just not mandatory. In terms of public health, the RTB will have to make a determination based on how many tribunals are going on per day or what the social distancing requirements are at any given time. There is no prohibition on tribunals taking place in public in section 7. That is key. The measure is in place until 10 January at which time I hope we can move on. I accept the points Senator Higgins made. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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