We are breaking new ground for the committee today. Until now the legislation which we have considered has been criminal legislation, in particular the public order and criminal procedure Bills, whereas the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Bill is civil legislation. More importantly, this is the first Private Members' Bill before any of the new select committees. All members of the committee join with me in congratulating Deputy Shatter on this achievement and indeed in welcoming the approach which the Government took on this matter.
I understand that during the course of the Second Stage debate in Private Members' time there was general agreement that the Select Committee on Legislation and Security would be ideally placed to tease out the difficult issues involved. This reflects well on the work already done by the committee on other Bills.
This measure, which regulates the relationship between landlord and tenant, is an important one and I am sure that the spirit of openness and cooperation which has marked the committee's work on other matters will be evident in our deliberations today. It should be noted that in addition to Deputy Shatter's, amendments have been tabled by the Minister for Justice, Deputy Michael McDowell and Deputy O'Donnell. The text of all amendments can be found on the two lists of amendments which were circulated this morning.
I wish also to bring to the attention of Members the following printing errors in the principal amendment list. In the third last line of amendment No. 2, the words "of the" should be inserted before the word "period". In the second line of amendment No. 4, the word "of" should be inserted after the word "term". The heading "Section 5" is missing from page 2.
