Dr. Karina Doorley:

I did expect to see something on landlords because it has emerged in recent years as becoming a bit more of an issue. Landlords are exiting the market. It is not clear what exactly is driving that. It is partly due to the high marginal tax rate that landlords face when renting a property and a lack of support. Maybe it is being unable to write off all expenses and so on. Obviously renting a property is not as profitable as it was expected to be or used to be. A lot of the demonisation of landlords, as described by Deputy Healy-Rae, stems from the financial crisis where people who had multiple properties for rent were seen to be part of the problem. The Chairman hit the nail on the head when she said that it may politically untenable to support landlords now. When tenants are having such difficulty in affording their rents and first-time buyers are having so much trouble finding a property then it does not seem like a logical step to support landlords. However, it seems that there is a case for supporting landlords in some way.