Deputy Dermot Ahern suggested that the Dublin Chamber of Commerce is landlord driven. For his information, in the survey conducted by the chamber, 64 per cent of landlords and 83 per cent of tenants surveyed favoured change. Therefore, far more tenants favoured change. Some landlords saw it as reducing the possibilities of using leases of two years and nine months as a type of lever to create problems for tenants whose businesses were successful.
I would not want to come between Deputies Dermot Ahern and Eoin Ryan and say anything which might be contentious in any way, but the Government must obviously be going more for Louth than for Dublin. According to feedback which I am receiving, most landlords in Dublin, rather than being reluctant to give five year leases, would welcome with open arms a tenant with a resonably good record looking for a five, ten or 15 year lease and shout hallelujah. Rather than looking for any key money, they would give a moratorium on rent for the first three months to enable the tenant get established. To some extent, the market is dealing with all of this and this Bill is designed to get over some of the barriers which the current law creates for people starting up in business.
This Bill, for Deputy Dermot Ahern's information, was not designed simply to implement what was said by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. It was being prepared when the chamber's report was published. It was a happy coincidence that the chamber had carried out the survey which indicated that the position was what we thought it to be and the need for change was as great as we understood.
One of the initial reasons for implementing this change was the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission and what the Fine Gael Party saw as a problem in the area of business which could be addressed without creating great legislative difficulties. The Bill is designed to strike a balance between landlords and tenants. It is not intended to wrong-foot either side but is designed to ensure that there is a degree of reasonable security for tenants who embark on businesses and whose rights should be protected.