Barry Cowen
Question:116. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the current waiting times for mediation, adjudication and tribunal hearings at the RTB. [36672/16]
View answerThursday, 24 November 2016
Questions (116, 117, 118, 119)
Barry Cowen
Question:117. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he has considered providing an annual grant to the RTB to increase its staffing and administrative capacity. [36673/16]
View answerBarry Cowen
Question:118. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he has satisfied himself that the RTB has enough staff to undertake its dispute resolution duties. [36674/16]
View answerBarry Cowen
Question:119. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government when the deposit protection scheme operated by the RTB will be in place; and the additional capacity that the RTB will require to undertake this function. [36675/16]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 116 to 119, inclusive, together.
The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) was established in September 2004 under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, which regulates the landlord-tenant relationship in the private rented residential sector and sets out the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants. The RTB was established as an independent statutory body under the Act to operate a national tenancy registration system and to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants.
The RTB has 40 staff in place at present with sanction for an additional 11 posts. The RTB is currently working to fill these posts. In 2012, the RTB awarded a contract outsourcing its call-centre activities and the processing of paper registrations, allowing the Board to focus on its dispute resolution functions. There are currently 34 people employed on the RTB account by t he outsourced service provider.
As the RTB replaces the Courts for the vast majority of landlord and tenant disputes, there are statutory time periods laid down in the Residential Tenancies Act to provide for due process. There are a number of factors that may delay the processing of a case including where adjournment requests are made or where there are difficulties locating a party to the dispute.
The RTB received 4,023 applications for dispute resolution in 2015, a 19% increase on 2014, when 3,374 cases were received. In 2015, some 84% of cases were processed or closed within 3 to 4 months. The RTB is continuously reviewing operations to increase efficiency and processing times continue to improve. The RTB reports that currently 96% of cases are completed in 4 months or less – a considerable improvement when compared to the 84% achieved in 2015.
A telephone mediation service was introduced by the RTB in late 2013 as an alternative means to address disputes. Processing times for telephone mediation cases in 2015 were typically 6 to 9 weeks. Processing times for telephone mediation have improved further in the course of 2016 to an average of 6 weeks. The average processing time for disputes referred to an Adjudicator was 14 weeks in 2015 and has improved to an average of 10 weeks in 2016.
Parties to a dispute can appeal the decision of an Adjudicator to a Tenancy Tribunal within 21 days of the date of receiving the adjudicators report. Parties to the mediation process who did not reach an agreement or where the agreement has broken down may refer the dispute to the Tenancy Tribunal within 10 days. The average processing times for Tribunal cases is 8 to 12 weeks from appeal to the issuing of the Determination Order.
The RTB’s funding is derived primarily from a proportion of the fee income accruing from tenancy registrations, as set down by Ministerial Order. Since 1 July 2016, the RTB is entitled to retain 100% of the registration fee income to fund its activities. The RTB also retains the fees it charges for its dispute resolution services. In 2016, the RTB also received €1.5m in funding from the Exchequer in relation to the planning and procurement of the new tenancy deposit protection scheme and €0.35m to fund operational costs.
The deposit protection scheme will be commenced as soon as the necessary conditions are in place to support roll-out. These are likely to include changes to the supporting information technology and contracts with outsourced project partners where appropriate. Work in this regard is already underway. Until the scheme is operational and ready to go live, there will be no change in the administration of tenancy deposits under the Act.
Details of the Board’s income and expenditure are set out in its Annual Reports and Accounts, which are available on its website at http://www.rtb.ie/media-research/publications/annual-reports.
My Department continues to keep the resources available to the RTB under close review and engages regularly with the Board on this matter. It is of course important that the RTB is adequately funded into the future and this matter is among the issues currently under consideration in the context of the development of the forthcoming Strategy for the Rental Sector.