The letting agent was complaining. In spite of her years of experience in dealing with landlords, she was surprised at the amount of her clients who failed to register with the PRTB (Private Residential Tenancies Board). "They just don't like it," she said.

"Especially the four-year bit - I mean they're terrified of giving a flat or a house for that length of time." She meant: after six months of tenancy, the tenant is entitled to a further three-and-a-half years residency, if rent is paid regularly.

The tenure does not apply if the tenant misbehaves or the landlord sells the place, refurbishes or needs it for a member of his own family.

Rent is subject to review if the tenant feels it's above the market rate.

After four years of residency, a new cycle of contract begins again, everybody starting from scratch. As in all laws, there are ways around it, but the letting agent was adamant that many of her clients feared it would be interpreted as anti-landlord. Which might explain: although for the past few months, the PRTB has force of law, at last count about 90,000 landlords had failed to register. It felt a bit like non-smokers opposing the smoking ban in pubs. "Don't they realise it's in their interest?" I asked. "I would be glad of a good tenant for four years."

The letting agent shrugged, so I gave her the rant, with a bit of history thrown in for irritation. Her resistant landlords, I said, are living in the past, relics of a time when most flats were owned by policemen or teachers or civil servants. "Mainly from the country," I added heavily, as if being a culchie was a crime.

Touting guaranteed state salaries, they were given mortgages by banks in less prosperous times, when the rest of the population could go sing for a loan. Being teachers or policemen, they had an authoritarian streak towards their tenants.

Many were also extortionate, dumping sticks of furniture in bedsits, ravaging second-hand shops for cheap fridges and worn beds. Quibbling over minor breakages, as if the chipped cheapo lamp were a family heirloom destined for Sotheby's.

Hearing my voice rise, I found a target. These neanderthal landlords, I said, seem to be heavy hitters with the Irish Property Owners' Association, to judge from their vocal opposition to the PRTB and their resistance to paying the €70 fee to register. What price €70 as against the vast property profits that has dogs in the street howling?

Oh, very nice, I said, what an example for the rest of us; good decent, law abiding landlords. (Note: beware of high moral ground, it usually presages a foot in the marsh).

From the letting agent's alarmed look I feared I was frothing at the mouth. Calming down, I told her I approved of the PRTB. Nothing wrong in my book. In fact, all good - a model of legal protections that a small democracy should provide for tenants of private rented housing.

Then I got into top gear again. "Crucial in its relevance to the well-being of about half-a-million citizens and timely in protecting the welfare of the 60,000 immigrants that are needed, year-on-year, to keep the tiger lashing his tail."

Howzat for style? Do I have a career beckoning as a ministerial speech-writer? Wise in it are provisions for independent arbitration in settling disputes, and it's sensible in protecting the different interests of both landlord and tenants. No evictions at the whim of a landlord, so hopefully in a few years the term "rapacious" which still runs with landlord in the Irish mind will become extinct.

Other provisions require a landlord to behave with civility (no sudden visits, no boorish behaviour over minor breakages). The law also requires tenants to behave responsibly towards the property and pay the rent regularly. In other words, no defence for unreasonable behaviour - from either side of the landlord/tenant divide.

For "divide" please read "contract" because the essence of a landlord/tenant relationship is contract, whether or not formally signed. The legal situation is finely balanced, in my view, between the rights and responsibilities of tenant - and the rights and responsibilities of landlord. It can only benefit all of us.

There - got that rant off my chest. I feel better now, thank you for asking. Yes, I have registered my tenants with the PRTB.

No - and thank you again for asking, but I am not a member of the Irish Property Owners Association. I am a landlord.