Dr. Ronan Lyons:

I thank the Deputy for the question. Rents are currently at a very high level, and that can be measured in many different ways. It can be measured based on how much they have changed over the past five, ten or 15 years, compared with 2007 or compared with incomes. Rents are very high and it is impacting everyday life in a number of ways, including people’s spending money but also job creation. Jobs are not being created because rents are too high and rental availability is too low.

We need to see the exact details of the changes to rent controls that have been proposed. They are only coming out this afternoon. I will take an educated guess as to what will be the impact based on what we have heard so far. What the country needs year to year is about – again, I will give ranges because we need to reflect the uncertainty – 10,000 to 15,000 rental homes built in the greater Dublin area every year, and probably 15,000 rental homes outside the greater Dublin area every year. We are close to zero at the moment on both fronts. I think Dublin is at 2,000 or 3,000, and falling. Will these changes have an impact in Dublin? Possibly, yes. I think we will see projects in the pipeline. Again, it depends a little bit on the specifics. Will we see a change outside Dublin? I would be very surprised if there is any change in the supply pipeline outside Dublin, with maybe one or two exceptions, namely, Cork and Galway. That is because of the viability challenge. Affordability and viability are, unfortunately, intertwined, and there is something of a paradox there. Costs are so high that it is not viable to build housing in many parts of the country even though affordability is so poor.

I was chair of the minority report, so I am happy to come back on that. I answered the first question, so I will leave it there for the moment.