Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 13 December 2016

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government

Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016: Committee Stage (Resumed)

2:10 pm

Photo of Eoin Ó BroinEoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I listened carefully at the press conference today. Obviously, because we have been in Committee all day, we did not have the time to read the detail of the report. I went to the launch to get as much of the detail as possible. I would like to hear the Minister's response to two things in light of what he said today. He talked about the balance between the ability of the investor to make a reasonable return and the tenant to have some predictability of rent, as he now calls it.

My concern is twofold. Yields on rental properties are at a very high level - some estimates have them at around 7% meaning that rent rolls are very high. There are many smaller landlords for whom even at the current high rents they are not meeting the mortgage payments on the properties. We accept that and there is research to back it up. However, for the institutional investors the Minister is looking to attract in as part of his overall Rebuilding Ireland strategy, the yields are already significant - not only higher than they have historically been in this State but higher than in other EU member states. When the Minister gave an explanation for picking the 4% annually for the three years, if I understood it right, he said that on the basis the kinds of reasonable returns that ISIL expects for its investors of somewhere in the region of 4% annually.

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