Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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Is mian liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire, an Teachta Dermot Ahern. Before we commence, I remind Senators that a Senator may speak only once on Report Stage, except for the proposer of an amendment who may reply to the discussion on the amendment. On Report Stage each amendment must be seconded. It is proposed to group the following amendments for the purposes of debate: amendments Nos. 2 and 3; amendments Nos. 4 and 5; amendments Nos. 6 to 13, inclusive; amendments Nos. 15 and 16; and amendments Nos. 17 and 18. All other members which are not grouped will be discussed individually.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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This technical amendment has been proposed to reflect recent changes in ministerial and departmental responsibilities. It involves the removal of the word "Equality" from the Minister's title so that it now reads "Minister for Justice and Law Reform".

Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge that amendment No. 2, which is a Government amendment, has also been tabled by the Labour Party.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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On Committee Stage, I tabled an amendment to section 10 proposing that three members of the property services regulatory authority "shall be persons who, in the opinion of the Minister, are representatives of persons who provide property services", such as auctioneers, letting agents and property management service providers. During subsequent discussions on the amendment, it was suggested that it would be appropriate to provide that "not more than" three members of the authority could be representatives of the property services sector, in order to avoid a situation arising in which the sector being regulated would be over-represented. I indicated I was prepared to return to the House on Report Stage with an appropriate proposal. Amendment No. 2, which mirrors the text of the amendment tabled by the Labour Party, makes the required change to section 10. As I said on Committee Stage, I am not in favour of being too prescriptive about the composition of the boards. It can make a Minister's task of appointing a competent board much more difficult and become an obstacle to achieving the necessary gender balance.

Section 10(3) already provides that in making appointments to the authority, the Minister shall have regard to their having knowledge or experience in consumer affairs, business, finance, management or administration or any other subject which would be of assistance to the authority in performing its functions. I am not in favour of professional consumer representatives in this regard. We are all consumers of goods and services. Most Members will have used a property service at some stage when buying a property or renting accommodation. It is not a specialised skill. The Bill's provisions are sufficient to ensure the appointment of a high calibre authority in due course.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Having experience over several years of appointing people to boards, when one is ticking all the boxes on gender representation balance, it is something of an onerous task. This is especially the case when getting nominations from various groups who do not necessarily put forward a gender balanced nomination, leaving it up to the Minister to ensure the gender balance of a board's membership. Much of the employer-employee relationship legislation requires representatives from trade unions and employers' groups on various boards. When one gets the nominations from these groups, as I said on Committee Stage, the Minister has to re-balance the board to tick the correct boxes on gender balance.

I accept Senator Bacik's point on highlighting the requirement for representatives with experience in consumer affairs. It was suggested on Committee Stage that there should be a specific requirement for representatives of consumer interests. Virtually everyone has had some dealings with the services to be regulated under this legislation. Any person off the street, therefore, would be able to represent consumer affairs in that respect. If one picks one over the other, in this case property services providers, will it imbalance representation?

I am desirous to have consumers' interests represented as much as possible. I will examine it again before it goes to the Dáil to see if the section can be tweaked to highlight consumer affairs. My experience, however, is that when one is picking a board it is better to have people on it with no vested interests because one might get a better overview. Having said that, when dealing with specialised legislation, one cannot pick anyone off the street to be an authority member. They need to have some experience and knowledge in the area concerned or else the board will become ineffectual.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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That is not agreed.

Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 are related and may be discussed together by agreement.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The purpose of a code of practice under the Bill is to provide guidance in the form of non-binding standards in respect of the provision of property services. For this reason, any failure to observe a provision of such a code would not, of itself, render a licensee liable to any civil or criminal proceedings. It can, if relevant, be taken into account by the authority, the appeals board or any court in determining whether "improper conduct", as it is termed in the Bill, has occurred.

This approach to the implementation of codes of practice was also used in other legislation. For example, section 56 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 and section 60 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 provide for codes of practice, and in neither case are sanctions provided for.

This Bill provides that non-observance of a code of practice can be taken into account in proceedings in determining whether improper conduct has occurred or is occurring. It is best to illustrate this by an example. Section 61 requires auctioneers to keep records of offers received on condition of acceptance where land is offered for sale by private treaty. The authority may decide in due course to issue a code of practice on how best to record this data and retain it. If it subsequently emerges that a licensee has breached section 61, which would amount to improper conduct, the authority or the appeal board can take account of the fact that the code of practice was issued and the licensee should have known of its content and followed it. Ignoring the code will not, of itself, be an offence but it will be much more difficult for a licensee to avoid a finding of improper conduct against him or her in such a case.

The sanctions in the Bill are substantial. A licensee's licence can be suspended or revoked or he or she can be required to pay up to €50,000 into the compensation fund, up to €50,000 towards the cost of an investigation of the authority and-or up to €250,000 to the authority. For these reasons, I cannot accept amendment No. 5 which would, in effect, be a block to the renewal of a licence for breach of a code.

I stated on Committee Stage that codes of practice are what they mean. They are there for guidance and not such that one must adhere to them to the letter of the law. A breach or avoidance of or ignoring the code of practice could be taken into account in respect of a finding of improper conduct against a licensee.

Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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Amendments Nos. 6 to 13, inclusive, and Nos. 15 and 16 are cognate and may be discussed together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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These are technical amendments. They provide that applications to the High Court and Circuit Court in the first instance shall be in a summary manner. This will mean the procedures for statutory applications under the rules of the superior courts and Circuit Court rules will automatically apply to such applications. This will remove the need to make specific rules of court to deal with any applications to the High Court or Circuit Court under the Act.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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This is merely a technical amendment.

Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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Amendments Nos. 17 and 18 are cognate and may be discussed together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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These are drafting amendments.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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This is a drafting amendment.

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chairman, the Seanad staff and mine for their work on the Bill. I also thank the Members of the House for their consideration of it. There was a relatively lively debate on Second Stage and the Bill is better for some of the amendments made which were prompted by both sides of the House. I was amenable to some of the changes prompted by the Opposition. It is necessary to get the legislation which I inherited when appointed Minister up and running. It might be said it involves another authority which, perhaps, we would reconsider in other times, but it is necessary to regulate this area properly. The broad spectrum of auctioneers, letting agents and management service providers has not been regulated as we would wish. The Bill fits in very well with the multi-unit development legislation which we concluded a couple of days ago. Obviously, one cannot deal with everything in this area in just one legislative measure. I thank Members of the House.

Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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Before calling Senator Bacik, I draw the attention of Senators to the following printing error in the Bill which occurred when it was being reprinted following Committee Stage. In page 119, between lines 23 and 24, a line of text is missing. The text which was erroneously omitted reads as follows:

"(2) In section 29(2), any reference to a licensee is a reference to a relevant person."

The missing text will be included when the Bill is reprinted following Report Stage.

Shane Ross (Independent)
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Yes, it has been a long road. The process started in this House six or seven years ago when Senator O'Toole and I said something had to be done about auctioneers. We progressed to a special commission to examine auctioneers, followed by recommendations. Whereas there are many inadequacies in the Bill, the situation is far better than it was. Not to put too fine a tooth in it, prior to this Bill, there was no regulation in auctioneering. There were a couple of auctioneering bodies which were toothless and fought each other rather than anybody else. They did little to regulate auctioneers. In fact, the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute, IAVI, and the association of chartered surveyors have merged since yesterday and it should be noted that the chartered surveyors are not calling themselves auctioneers, while the auctioneers are calling themselves chartered surveyors. Nobody has the desire, given the history of auctioneering in this country, to call himself or herself an auctioneer, following the scams and malpractices in the sector. One did not require a single qualification to be an auctioneer. That one did not have to be able to read, write or add to be an auctioneer was an absolute disgrace, given that one was handling clients' money.

It is appropriate to welcome this measure, although I accept there have been political difficulties for the Government in doing this. The auctioneering lobby is and has been extremely strong and there has been much behind the scenes action in an attempt to amend, change and defeat the Bill. The legislation is a step in the right direction. I will not add anything further on its inadequacies which have been mentioned many times. This is progress and I thank the Minister for bringing the process to completion.

Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for dealing personally with the Bill on the different Stages in the House. It is important legislation, with the Multi-Unit Developments Bill which we concluded on Tuesday. While it has taken some time, it is important for the regulation of auctioneering, estate agents, letting agents and so forth. The fact that the Property Services Regulatory Authority is already in place having been established on an interim basis will, I expect, allow for implementation of the Bill without undue delay. We have done good work this week in the regulation of the property market and service providers which will be of benefit in the future.

Lisa McDonald (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the passing of the Bill and thank the Minister for the time he spent considering it, as drafted, accepting amendments and teasing out various options to make it a better and well considered Bill. I also thank the staff in the Minister's office. The legislation is long overdue and very welcome. Practically every citizen has had dealings with those involved in property services, be they auctioneers, estate agents, letting agents or others; therefore, the Bill will be widely welcomed. It will improve the situation of people who are buying or selling houses to know they have access to an appeals mechanism and that they can have transparency when dealing with auctioneers. This is long overdue, as all sides of the House agree.

Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)
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When is it proposed to sit again?

Lisa McDonald (Fianna Fail)
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At 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 15 June.

Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)
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I register my opposition to the proposal that the House not sit next week and that it sit again on 15 June.

Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)
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I also oppose the proposal. I propose that the House sit at 2.30 p.m. next Tuesday, 8 June, as normal.