Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I want to come back on a previous query about the fact that the CSO's registration data for local authorities is very similar to that of the National Oversight and Audit Commission. It reported in its 2022 report that there were 146,000 local authority properties, while the CSO reported around 150,000. There is a strange anomaly because the public private partnership social homes are owned by the local authority but actively managed by AHBs, so they do not fall under the RTB. That could create additional confusion for the tenant because if they are dealing with Oaklee Housing for example, as they do in my constituency, there might not be clear ownership. There are not 4,000 of those but there are probably at least 1,000, or maybe shy of 1,000 of them.

For me, the key thing is not whether there are missing tenancies or landlords. It is whether the private rental sector is growing or shrinking. That is the really crucial thing. I share Dr. Byrne's analysis, which is that I think it is but one of the things that the census data ask us to query is whether it is shrinking at the rate at which we thought it was shrinking previously. That is the kind of conversation we need to have.

I have a couple of questions that are all related to that.

I am keen to know when the 2022 registration data will be published. At what point does Mr. Byrne think the RTB will be in the position to report 2023 registration data – not the quarterly registrations, but the total quantum of registrations? We have had no annual registration data since 2021 because of the issues with the new systems, so that information would be helpful.

There is the issue around the challenges of individual property landlords. There was a commitment at an earlier stage to allow AHBs to bulk register to allow them to improve their process. Can Mr. Byrne give an update on that?

The software and IT systems are related to the efficacy or accuracy of the data. Can Mr. Byrne give us an update on who is responsible for dealing with those challenges within the online registration system? What is the cost of that? If Mr. Byrne does not have that information, he can send it to the committee in writing afterwards - that would be fine. Does the RTB have sufficient funds?

I will raise an issue I raised with the RTB previously. To make things more complicated, in some senses, the exits are not the issue; rather, it is the entrants and the net flow. There was a conversation in an earlier period suggesting that the actual number of single property landlords leaving each year could have been even greater and that while the new rental stock coming in from the build-to-rent private rented sector was reducing the net reduction – if there is a net reduction - it did not acknowledge the fact that they are two very different sectors because the new stock coming in is at the higher end cost-wise and much of the single-property stock is at the middle or lower end. I have always been keen for the RTB to try to find some way of grappling with that in order that we would not just know what the net change is but would also get a better sense of whether, as some stock exits, the stock coming in is in a different price range. It is not, therefore, only about whether the stock coming in is equal in number. Does Mr. Byrne have any thoughts on that?

I am interested in what was said on RTB compliance capacity. That sounded like a very diplomatic request for additional resources. I invite Mr. Byrne not to be diplomatic. If there is a compliance challenge, the committee should know because we could write to the Minister and raise the issue. I know there was some additional funding for the RTB in the budget announcement today but I would like to hear more about that.

Senator Cummins made a good point. I have no idea what number of renters renting are from family and are therefore not required to register with the RTB. It is not something I have come across a lot and I live in and represent a constituency with a huge rental sector. That might be an issue the CSO could consider for future censuses. If it is a big number, it would be good to know what it is. The CSO could increase the number of options provided in the census from three or four to five or six. Obviously, the questions cannot be overcomplicated but that would be useful.

The issue of trying to find a way on the property price register to clearly distinguish between properties purchased for owner occupation and properties purchased for rental stock is something we should write to the Minister about. Does the property price register sit under the Department of Justice? I think it does. The only reason I suggest this is that there was quite a lot of news coverage before Covid and in the early period of Covid about small institutional investors that had small- to medium-sized funds buying up portions of second-hand homes. The Business Postreported on the matter significantly. We were never able to get a clear read on that, however. Given that there is an issue there with compliance and so on, it would be interesting for us to consider asking the Department whether that could be clearly delineated, not just in terms of stamp duty but also the intent of property purchase. While that may not be possible, the more data sources we have, the better.

Perhaps Mr. Byrne could respond to those questions.