Property watchdog 'twiddling its thumbs'

A REGULATORY authority that will cost €300,000 to run this year “is twiddling its thumbs” because it has no legal powers to act.

Joanna Tuffy (Labour, Dublin Mid West) said the property services regulatory authority, which would deal with “exorbitant management fees” and bad management services “has been open since November 2007 and is twiddling its thumbs”.

“It will cost €300,000 to run this year, but has no legal powers to do the work it is supposed to do.” She said the Government had been promising the legislation “next session” for the past few sessions.

Tánaiste Mary Coughlan said the Bill “has been almost brought to finality, and will be published next session”.

In the past two sessions “we have had to deal with a considerable number of emergency Bills which were complex and took considerable time”.

The Anglo-Irish Corporation Bill, the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill and the Residential Tenancies Bill were “emergency pieces of legislation which were facilitated in this House”.

However, Ms Tuffy said the problem of a lack of legislation started after the 2007 general election. “In 2007 the number of Bills passed was the lowest since 1922.”

Earlier Labour whip Emmet Stagg said the Government promised 18 Bills this session but only published one.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan had asked the Tánaiste to “explain how the paralysis in the drafting of legislation has permeated all aspects of Government policy recently”.

Ms Coughlan said a “considerable” number of pieces of legislation were “almost completed”.

She said this session did not finish until April 22nd, and more Bills would be published.