Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa:

The Chairman asked whether there were plans to review the criteria. In a statement in the Dáil on 15 December during the passage of the Bill, the Minister made it very clear that he had a commitment to review the effectiveness of the implementation of the rent pressure zones in June.

Today's discussion is very welcome because we will be able to take on board people's views and concerns about all of the issues to do with not only how the process works and how the data are used but also criteria. We will also be in a position by June, after six months of the measure being in place, to review its effectiveness. It is worth bearing in mind the objective, which was to moderate rent increases in areas where rents were rising consistently and were well above the national average. The objective was never to have rent control across the country. It was very clear during the debates in the Dáil that that was the intention of the Bill.

We will be reviewing the entire criteria but even before that the Housing Agency, and Mr. Silke may wish to speak about this later, has a function to monitor the rents on an ongoing basis and as each new quarter arrives, there will be new data. The RTB quarterly data will be available in the coming weeks and the data for Quarter 4 of 2016 will be reviewed. Some areas such as those mentioned by Deputy O'Dowd will be reviewed again in light of those data.