Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I suggest the amendments are not in any way dealing with impartiality. It is not about being partial to a tenant or liking a tenant. It is about due process. It is about standards in the rental sector and the standards in practice. We know from when we were discussing the legislation and how complex it is that the RTB is sometimes in a better position to know whether something is prima facie invalid or valid. It has the expertise that an individual tenant might not have. I am not suggesting it goes to gun for a particular tenant. I am saying it would raise and flag a concern. There is a concern about the RTB giving its imprimatur . A landlord might say the RTB was also sent this and it did not raise any concerns. I want to know what the mechanism is for the RTB if something comes across its desk that is just straight up wrong. --- 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