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

I congratulate Mr. Dunne on his proposed appointment; that is probably what we can say at this stage. Based on his presentation and having worked with him in the past, he is eminently qualified and will do a good job in the role. I wish him good luck with that. I would like to make a couple of comments so that he knows where some of us on the committee are coming from. We pay close attention to the RTB and many of us have been arguing for the board to be given increased powers. We are supportive of the Government's albeit belated introduction of some of those powers in the recent legislation. One of the main priorities is to ensure the new legislation hits the ground running as quickly as possible. Recruitment and IT issues have to be resolved but the sooner all of that is in place, the better. While it is not all completely under the control of the RTB and some of it was time-lined by the Department, it is something we would all like to happen as quickly as possible.

From a policy point of view and in respect of the RTB's role of offering policy advice, one of the issues that is not getting enough attention in government or in the Department is the considerable loss of rental properties that occurred in 2017 and 2018. Over that two-year period, 12,000 rental properties were lost from the market. The most recent figures from the RTB indicate that 3,000 new rental properties were gained in the first quarter of this year but we will have to wait to see if there is a trend indicating that the loss has stabilised. My big fear last year was that we were seeing a disorderly exit of accidental and semi-professional landlords who were availing of the upturn in property prices to get out of the market. There is not an awful lot we can do about that in terms of those people wanting to leave, but sitting back and doing nothing is the worst option. The RTB could usefully lead a conversation informed by the evidence, as we get more data quarter on quarter, as to whether we are seeing a disorderly exit and what the most appropriate policy responses would be to ensure that, if it happens, this exit has the least damaging impact on tenants and the rental sector overall. Much of it is driven by accidental landlords simply wanting to get out. Now that property prices have recovered to their original mortgage purchase prices, it is the opportune moment to go. However, we do not know if that is the case and we do not know what other factors are influencing this. Perhaps some research, data and discussion on that would be useful.

That leads to a broader conversation on the fact that we have too many accidental and semi-professional landlords. It is not that we cannot have professional landlords with one or two properties. Germany and other countries show that we can. The work that the RTB has been doing on attempting to assist landlords to become more professional needs to be accelerated, as I am sure the officials will agree. What that looks like, how we do it and whether it should be compulsory or voluntary is a conversation we need to have. It needs to be ensured that landlords fully understand that this is not a passive investment or something they can do in their spare time. It is almost a full-time job in many cases.

This committee might want to return to that as a key issue some time next year.

The third issue is security of tenure. While Part 4 tenancies give the impression of security of tenure on paper, section 34 is filled with problems. This committee has returned to that repeatedly. Many of us, including Deputy Mick Barry, myself and others, have tabled legislation to remove many of the section 34 grounds such as sale and the use by a family member. If we want to professionalise the sector, we need to ensure that people who want to rent can do so for very long periods without that insecurity. With the rental market in a period of transition, maybe now is the time to grapple with that. We cannot continue with a drip-feed of amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 because that destabilises the market, but some of these things need to be tackled.

I wish to discuss the rent pressure zones, RPZs. Without opening a broader policy conversation I note that according to the latest Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, information new rents in Dublin have increased by 8.8%. While the policy might have been well-crafted, there is not much evidence the RPZs are working effectively. The fact that more and more areas are being included in the RPZs confirms one of the fears many of us originally had, namely, that there would be a ripple effect pushing up rents in the areas adjoining them. We will have to return to the conversation on rent certainty, rent management and a more effective way to guarantee them.

The great difficulty of our current system is that both the landlord and the tenant are the losers at both the low point and the current high point of rental price. That huge volatility is built into the system. The RPZs were a temporary measure, one which I did not support and I do not think is working. If we are going to reform the rental sector over the long term, how can we get the balance right between tenants' legitimate rights and expectation to reasonable rents that they can manage over the course of their life cycle and landlords' reasonable expectation of a fair return on their investments as long as they are fully compliant with the law and are providing a good service to tenants? I am a tenant and I have a good landlord, so I have experienced this directly. We have not fixed that yet. That is another policy conversation we need to have. We would welcome the opportunity to come back to that discussion next year.