Mr. Paul Joyce:

The problem in the private rental market is that rent payments may be greater than mortgage payments would be. It is interesting that the Central Bank's consultation paper discusses affordability in the context of mortgage borrowing but not of rent payments. If the Central Bank is saying that the loan amount should be capped at 3.5 times the gross income, equating to 40% of gross income, does that standard apply to rent? As is laid out in our submission, the average rent for a house in Dublin is currently about €1,300, and there are a lot of people paying far higher rents than that. A figure of 40% of net income would mean that a household paying this average in rent would have to have an income of nearly €3,200 per month, in other words €735.58 take-home pay per week. The average wage - not the average industrial wage - is €688.15 per week so there are clearly a lot of people, certainly in Dublin, who are paying much more than 40% of their net take-home pay in rent. The case that Senator Craughwell makes for rent controls is, in my view, very strong. If we control the amount that people can borrow without controlling the amount that landlords can charge people, which in some cases works out to be more than mortgage payments would be, that is an unconscionable situation.