Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 15 July 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion
2:00 am
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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No apologies have been received. I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings.
Like the housing market in general, the residential rental sector is facing significant issues and challenges for both tenants and landlords. The greatest single challenge is the lack of supply, which, in turn, is driving up rents. Other issues facing the sector include security of tenure, tenancy terminations, changes to no-fault evictions, the operation and reform of rent pressure zones, reset of market rents and changes to the sale of rental properties by landlords.
I am pleased the committee has the opportunity to consider this and other related matters with representatives from Threshold, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, IPAV, and the Irish Property Owners Association, IPOA. I welcome, from Threshold, Mr. John-Mark McCafferty, CEO, and Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly, national advocacy manager; from IPAV, Mr. Pat Davitt, CEO, and Mr. Fintan McGill, president, and from the IPOA, Ms Mary Conway, chairperson, Mr. Maurice Deverell, spokesperson and committee member, and Ms Margaret McCormick, information officer.
I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
The opening statements have been circulated to members. We have a tight timeframe for our meeting. I want members to have an opportunity to ask questions and make points so we will take the opening statements as read. I propose that we publish the opening statements? Is that agreed? Agreed.
I ask members to direct their questions to the witnesses from whom they want an answer. A time limit for asking questions and for the answers applies. We will move straight to questions.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I will move straight to it because the clock is ticking and time is limited.
I have read the opening statements and tried to prepare as best as I can. Threshold, in its opening statement, states that 3,000 renters with notices to quit contacted it in the first six months of this year. Where does that stand in terms of trends? Is that figure up on the previous year? I ask Threshold to give us an idea of the position as regards presentations with notices to quit?
Ms Margaret McCormick:
Regarding tenancy terminations, we did see a bit of a spike in early 2023, but the number we are seeing now has been fairly consistent since about 2020. There are slight variations quarter on quarter, but since coming out of the main Covid-related restrictions we have seen the figure be fairly consistent. We are seeing that in the majority of cases, perhaps half or thereabouts, the properties are for sale and in another 17% or 18% of cases, it is because the landlord needs the property for their own use or that of a family member.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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To be fair, Threshold's statement on the recent changes the Government announced for the rental sector is a balanced assessment. Threshold did not welcome every aspect of that announcement but it did welcome many aspects of it, which is good. My time is tight so I must move on.
IPAV did not give a positive assessment of the recent changes to the rental sector. Its opening statement is quite critical of the Government on management of the rental sector from a number of perspectives. In terms of the changes to the rent pressure zones, RPZs, and so on, does IPAV expect them to do anything to improve investment in the private market and private rental sector?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
We were quite positive towards the changes and amendments. We supported them 100% and we think they are very good. We are delighted that, at last, there seems to be some changes in the RPZs. Going forward, we would like to get more property into the rental market. We can see ways to do that. Some of the ways are to encourage new landlords into the marketplace. We cannot encourage them by continually giving them rent legislation and regulation all of the time. That is not the way to go. The big stick needs to be put away and the carrot needs to be brought out. We need to encourage people into this market right now.
Some of the changes that were made are very important and there are some other important changes that should be made. These include the ending of the historical leases at some time. We have talked about eight- to ten-year periods for this. That should happen. We would be happy to see the period set at ten years. At least, it gives the opportunity to get rid of the RPZs in one way or the other and term leasing. Obviously, that is not from the point of view of a market. There should be some limit to what people can charge in the rental market. We are happy with that but those tenancies should end and there should be a timeframe for people because many landlords are paid well below market rent for properties.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am struck by the point made in IPAV's opening statement that few would argue with the view that the rental market is a broken system. Even after these changes, is Mr. Davitt still saying it is a broken system?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
It is a broken system from the point of view that it is very unfair that some landlords in the private market can get an "A" rent, while others get a "B" rent. That is very unfair. It is a broken system in that we cannot get more landlords into the market. We have many ideas that would get many more landlords into the market. We are delighted that, at last, the Minister is at least listening to what people on the ground have to say, which is very important.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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IPAV made the point that smaller landlords are exiting the sector. Does Mr. Davitt see that trend continuing?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
The Deputy referred to 3,000 notices of termination and those leaving the marketplace. That figure may well be correct. We first brought this issue to the Government in 2018 when landlords were leaving the marketplace. Many people did not believe it then but we have seen a lot of landlords leaving since. The problem for many landlords is that if they are getting a low rent for a property, there is nothing they can do. How do they get that rent up? They cannot change it and there is no timeframe to change it. To sell the property they have to get vacant possession, so they have to give a notice of termination. That is a problem in the marketplace that we need to address. We would then not be looking at the 3,000 notices of termination the Deputy referred to,
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will get to the IPOA in the next round.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I meant to say, when welcoming Mr. Davitt, that this will be his last engagement in a public forum. He is retiring in his role as CEO of IPAV. We thank him for his long years of contributing to the organisation and we welcome Ms Genevieve McGuirk who is taking over in the role.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I wish Mr. Davitt the best. I suspect it is not the last we will see of him. It might not formally be with IPAV, but I suspect he will be about the House.
I have two questions for Threshold. I thank everybody for the submissions. Will Mr. McCafferty or Ms O'Reilly set out Threshold's view of what we know so far about the market reset proposals in the RPZ reforms for new and first-time tenancies from March of next year? I know we have not seen the legislation but will Threshold set out what it believes will be the impact of those reforms on tenants? We have also had the announced changes to apartment standards. There has been a lot of discussion of the impact that will have on viability. Will Threshold give the tenant's point of view on what the impact will be of those new design standard regulations?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
Regarding the market rent reset, overall we are very supportive of what is being proposed regarding security of tenure and the limitation of no-fault evictions. However, the proposal to allow a market rent reset at different points, in particular at the turnover of a tenancy where the tenant leaves by choice or is being evicted for breaching the agreement, is a concern. We think that will actually undermine the entire security of tenure that is being proposed. At present, tenancies tend to turnover every three to four years, whether as a person's choice or not. If we continue in that vein, in a short space of time - maybe four or five years - we will see the majority of rents at market rent. We will, therefore, have a far more expensive rental market.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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To be clear, is it Ms O'Reilly's assessment that within a period of four or five years, the majority of tenants, because of the churn in the market, will essentially be moving towards full market rents?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
Yes, exactly. People will be priced out of their home and potentially priced out of their community and everyone will be paying much higher rents.
While the RPZs are not being ended on a certain day and while the cliff-edge scenario is being avoided by allowing the change to happen on an individual tenancy basis, it is creating a cliff edge for individual households at different points. So many-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for cutting across Ms O'Reilly. In 2014 and 2015, the first driver of family homelessness was not vacant possession evictions but was the inability to pay rising rents. This led to the creation of the RPZs. Is Ms O'Reilly fearful that we could be in a similar situation where vacant possession notices to quit will be replaced by people being unable to pay rents going into new tenancies or at the end of the reset?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
That is a possibility. I was working in homeless services when we started to see issues arising. At the time, there were economic evictions. Rents were legally increased, and people could not afford them. What we might have is a situation where people have to move, for whatever reason, and they enter into tenancies where the rent is already high. They will probably struggle to pay it from the beginning and, eventually, they will possibly will fall into arrears and lose their homes. As it is, there are people, particularly at the lower end of the market, who are struggling to pay.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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On apartment standards, what is the potential impact on tenants?
Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:
In relation to the first element, the role of HAP is key here. If we are finding that there is a critical mass of families and individuals who simply cannot afford the higher rent levels, a question arises as to how the State bridges the gap between what the market can command and what household budgets can extend to. That will be a large budgetary consideration for Government over the coming years, particularly as HAP is already a costly but necessary measure in the current housing climate.
Regarding standards, we are urging caution. We understand the importance of supply and the importance of trying to find the right measures to facilitate and incentivise the enhancement of supply. However, changes to apartment sizes and from dual aspect to single aspect make a difference. I come from Glasgow. In the post-war period, there was building on industrial scale by social housing providers. Many developments were single aspect and there was high density on a massive scale. It has taken decades and billions of pounds to basically raze those flats to the ground. I bought a single-aspect apartment. It is grim in the winter. It had a north-eastern aspect. It is not somewhere that you would want to spend the rest of your days.
I understand the overall Government objective to try to stimulate supply. I caution, however, whether some of those measures have gone too far in terms of impairing peoples' quality of life in light of the impact. Psychologically, it might be fine for one person or even a couple to live in these units. If you bring children into the equation of a small apartment or you encourage multigenerational households to live in these apartments - because time goes on and life happens - you can only imagine the physical and mental stresses that might ensue. It is about treading carefully with regard to those measures.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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For the Residential Tenancy Board, RTB, I have query on how the system runs. I am aware of a landlord who made a payment on 20 May. In early June, that person got a letter back stating that no payment had been made. On 14 June, she got a final reminder. At that stage, she sent a second cheque because of serious concern that she had maybe mislaid the first one. Low and behold, however, a few days later a letter came back acknowledging the first-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I apologise for interrupting. Deputy Cooney may be directing his question to the wrong witnesses. Who are you directing your question to?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will be dealing with the RTB is in the next session.
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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I am from the south Galway area of the Gort-Kinvara municipal district, which is rural rent pressure zone within commuting distance of Galway city. In recent years, there has been a noticeable trend in the area regarding accident landlords. I refer here to people who came into ownership of houses as a result of family bereavements. Some of these people rented their properties to a single tenant, considered it to be a bad experience and once the tenancy finished, never re-entered the rental market again. The houses involve are often left vacant. That is becoming an increasing trend in the rent pressure zone in south Galway. As representatives of property owners, what do the witnesses see as a means of making the experience of being a landlord for these people who never intended to be landlords better? What could be done to bring these houses back into the rental market?
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
The first thing is that the idea of one month’s deposit given at the start of a tenancy is ridiculous. It does not cover the tenant who has to give notice, which is a minimum of one month. Straight away, they are down in that regard and are always on the back foot compared with tenancy law. It is the way it is. When you look at Galway and empty properties, it is difficult to convince somebody to be a landlord because there are many things going against them. It is not only societal, but even trying to raise funds or to keep a property going. If there is somebody in south Galway and they take on a tenant before 1 March next, they will be stuck at the 2% or the HICP. From 1 January 2025 to 1 January 2026, the HICP is 0.7%. My insurance on one property went up by 28%. It is just ridiculous that we are stuck at this. Not only that, you are stuck at it until the tenant goes at some stage. That is if they go.
We are back at a sitting tenant’s scenario that we had many years ago. It is hard to sell anybody an idea of putting in €100,000, €200,000 or €500,000 of their money into a product that they can never get back. Why would someone do that? You go straight back to the banks, and they drop their interest rates. You go to Raisin Bank, and they drop their interest drops. You go to the stock market. You do whatever, but at least you can get your asset back. With the proposals we see in front of us, you cannot get your assets back.
The Senator referred to one property and one tenant. His friend is lucky. Let us say it is a four-bed house and it is let out on the basis of four separate tenancies or it is a pre-1963 building divided into four units, then the person involved is not lucky. What will happen is that those four beds will be the subject of four separate tenancies and the owner of the property will be classed as a large landlord. They let the property out from 1 March 2026, and they are then on a period of six years. If it is a property containing four units, the tenants do not all come in together. They come in year one, year three, year four and year five. As the years go by, the original six years are extended. Let us say I want to retire in 20 years’ time. By the time I get to my final six years, three of those units are going to be vacant for a period because I cannot put anybody into them unless I am sure that those people are going to move out. This is another reason why many of these rules are bad. If I am looking at a tenant that I am taking in on my final six-year routine, I am going to look for a transient tenant. I am not going to take in an older person, which would have ideal because they do not party, they pay their rent on time and they are generally quiet. I am going to take in a young person from somewhere foreign who will hopefully go home in a couple of years. There is so much against it that it hard to convince the Senator's friend to stay. That is why so many guys are getting out of the business.
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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Does the organisation have any proposals to improve the situation for these accidental landlords to which I referred?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The answer will have to be short.
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
Not particularly for accidental landlords. In our opening statement, we outlined the three major problems we are have with this proposed legislation. There is a constitutional aspect. The idea that a person is forced to sell to somebody - for example, if they are forced to sell to another landlord - has to be a constitutional issue. There is no other asset that you can buy that you are forced to sell. You are not forced on the stock market to sell an asset to somebody else in particular. From that point of view, there has to be a constitutional element. The capital value of the property is going to-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have to interrupt. We are tight on time.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses for attending.
I will go to the people from Threshold first with my set of questions. They highlighted the concern that rents will increase as a result of the latest changes. What level of rent increase do they foresee? Do they see homelessness rising as a result of those changes and will they give some estimation of the impact?
My other question is to the landlord organisations. First, how have landlords responded to the latest changes to the RPZs? Are they informing the witnesses that they will issue notices to quit, for example, between now and 1 March in order to be in a situation whereby where they can charge market rents? Do they see a role for any controls on rents? If being a landlord is made more financially attractive, does it not mean that there will be more money chasing a limited supply? For example, if it is more incentivised to be a landlord, more people will want to invest in property. They will then be competing with home buyers to purchase second and first homes. That will lead to inflation in house prices. Will the witnesses comment on that? Are they aware of many landlords who could potentially turn to Airbnb as a result of this happening?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
The Deputy's first question was on the level of potential rent increases. It is beyond our remit to be able to project that. Based on individual property analysis done by the ESRI for the RTB, we see those jumps in rents at the turnover of a tenancy. Off the top of my head, it was somewhere around 8%. Maybe it was higher than that. I am sorry, I cannot remember. However, we have the potential to see that. If we have a situation where landlords are choosing to take on shorter term tenants, we could start to see these jumps in rents every year. In the context of this and maybe in light of a couple of the announcements we have seen recently, we have not necessarily seen modelling to show what the impact would be on rents and supply. Obviously, the other side of these proposals is to entice institutional investors to invest and build more. We have not seen that yet, so we can only guess on the basis of the limited information available. Mr. McCafferty will speak to the other question.
Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:
Regarding homelessness, you would need to model it. I go back to between 2013 and 2016, the period of the early recovery when this phenomenon whereby there was a wholesale increase in rents emerged, albeit from a relatively low base of rent levels. That increase, with things like the rent supplement levels not keeping place or geographical mismatches, meant, ultimately, that a growing number of households with an increasing inability to keep up their rental payments. Therefore, you had economic evictions and a ramping up of people entering into homelessness. We have been here before in a period when there has been either no or low imposition on rent levels as a result of legislation. It was only when the RPZs came in that there was a solid moderation.
Ms Margaret McCormick:
I am in the office all the time. The number of calls we get from people genuinely in fear of this situation and of losing their properties is incredible. Some landlords are not serving notices yet. They are monitoring it and looking at the situation. Many of these people have been in the market quite a while. Their families have been in the market for generations. They saw the damage that formerly rent-controlled properties did. We still see them coming up every now and then. The property basically went down through owners' families, with the rent being so low that the capital gains tax the inheritors had to pay was so huge that sometimes the properties were not even worth it. People just could not sell these properties. There are massive difficulties in that regard.
What we have now is a group of people who should hold onto property, basically until they die because that will be the most tax efficient thing for them to do. They are moving out of that and looking at selling. These are the people you want to keep in the market. These are the people who offer low rents. Their tenants have been with them a long time. They do not want to do it to their tenants. They do not want to give notice. They are at a stage in their lives where they have maybe paid down most of their debt and can afford to keep rents low. Then you have the other group of people who are caught in rent pressure zones. They possibly came into the market later and are now in a situation where their tenants are never going to leave. They have low rents, and they will continue to have then. It will be uneconomic for those landlords to stay in the market, and they will move out.
Somebody asked what needs to be done. The Residential Tenancies Act is incredibly complex. It is a disaster. It is bureaucratic. You would need to be a barrister to follow what is involved, to serve a notice and to get it right. On many occasions, landlords will think they have done things right and will then be told that something is missing. There is a date involved. Some of the stuff can be minor, for example, the statutory declaration. Two people may own a property, but only one person may have always managed it and may have signed the declaration. It is not valid as a result. The two of them were supposed to sign it. The number of things in the legislation that are problematic and difficult is incredible. The timelines are incredible. The dispute timelines to get a case through the RTB are so slow. Even the people now who are considering selling are almost frightened to give notice because of what they are bringing on themselves - like the timeline and over-holding. The legislation is totally unbalanced. The landlord will be penalised if they step out of line in any shape or form, but a tenant who over holds is not. It is hugely difficult.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I welcome the witnesses. I will start with the Irish Property Owners Association. On the number of tenancies and landlords, is it correct that they have both been decreasing all the time?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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They both have. The RTB figures show that the number of registered private tenancies is up 4.6% annually to 240,604. The number of landlords grew by 1.4% in the past 12 months. Where is the mix-up?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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In a word, what is the problem? Is it that landlords are not being honest when registering? Is that what is happening?
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
-----last November, the RTB sent our 16,000 emails to numerous non-registered and registered landlords. That would have encouraged more guys to register. The registration numbers in certain counties were way below what they should have been. Galway and Donegal in particular were bad.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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There are other figures that show the number of tenancies and the number of units rented are up. The number of overall units is up. I know there was research showing that. Is that correct?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I am talking about private tenancies.
Ms Margaret McCormick:
There is an argument that they changed the goalposts as to how they looked at the counting. They moved from the old system where you were registered every four or six years, and the number of tenancies at that stage was different. When they moved to annual registration, it was almost impossible to get the registrations over the line. Numerous landlords got frustrated. They just could not do it. They were going back and forth trying to do it.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I accept that. I am just watching for the time.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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The number of registered tenancies is up. The number of registered landlords is up. I understand that some might not have been registered or had difficulty registering. However, the actual number of rented units is up. The IPOA stated earlier that where tenants have low rents, there is evidence of black market activity whereby they are subletting to other tenants. Is there much evidence of that?
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
We carried out a survey in which 46% of our members indicated subletting had occurred. In other words, where tenants are living in a properties and where the landlords did not give permission for them to be there. It is happening all over.
It makes perfect sense. If a tenant is stuck on an old 2015 rent plus 2% for all the years going forward and is now getting the property so cheaply, while their mate is coming in from wherever, why would that person not make €200 a month out of it or whatever?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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The 46% level would surprise me, because from what I see I would not have thought it was anything near that. Of course, there will always be somebody who will do that, but I would not have thought it was as widespread.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Right, okay. People are more honest down the country. I can understand why that would be regarding the anecdotes. People are more anonymous and there is not as much on-the-ground evidence in relation to it. Turning to the fix for this issue, I get it concerning a landlord who has been charging a very low rent historically because he has a good tenant. I know people who have second houses and have been renting them to somebody cheaply for several years. They are happy enough with them there. The rent would be half what it is in the general area. It is happy days. Obviously, though, it can cause problems with the new restrictions coming in. In a word, what is the fix for this situation? Is it reference rents? How do we fix this situation without causing some other unintended consequence? How should this be fixed?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Is Ms Conway saying the rents would revert to the average market rent in the general area?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Ms Conway, is saying that, for example, if I am charging 60% of what the market rent is in an area now, I would continue to charge 60%, go up 4% each year and then at year five the rent would level out and come up to whatever the market rent is in the area.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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In effect, it becomes a reference rent of sorts.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Okay, it does not look at the size of the property or other factors. From the witnesses' experience, what is the highest proportion of a person's net income or household income that should be spent on rent?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Would that be of net income?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Conway and Deputy Stanley. I call Senator Aubrey McCarthy.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank all the witnesses for being here today. I read their statements. Looking at the different interests, the fundamental problem seems to be that demand far exceeds supply. I have talked about this issue in the Houses before regarding whether emergency planning laws and emergency planning powers fast-track the delivery of housing and help to unlock stalled supply. I set up a homeless charity called Tiglin. I will speak in the context of my experience. We work with a cohort of people from backgrounds, usually, of addiction and marginalisation. Last Friday, I went to see Tabor House in Navan. Twelve individuals there have come through a wonderful rehabilitation programme - similar to our own - and are ready to hit the road. The problem is their HAP is not being accepted by any landlord. It is not because of their background or anything else, it is just the HAP itself. Is there something here that needs to be looked at or have the economics simply stopped working for HAP?
If one thing could be changed regarding housing supply and how to unlock it, especially for lower-income families or vulnerable households, what would that be? If the witnesses saw the briefing today from the St. Vincent de Paul today, it was about setting up a homeless prevention budget. I wonder what their thoughts are on that subject.
Turning to the witnesses from Threshold, what do they think of the new planning laws reducing the size of housing units to 32 sq. m? The Minister is saying it should benefit builders by bringing down the costs but also benefit purchasers by lowering the price. I am wondering how all that can be done. I would like the witnesses' views on these questions.
Ms Mary Conway:
I will take the question on HAP. I know many landlords are nervous of it, because in some instances it can take four to five months to get paid. No landlord is in a position to wait to get paid for four to five months. The delays really seem to be that the HAP system is just squeezed too tight and this is a challenge for most landlords.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Has there been lobbying on this issue? Has it ever been challenged?
Ms Mary Conway:
I am not quite sure. I know there was a change whereby if the tenant stops paying their proportion to the council, it would continue to pay for a couple of months and then completely stop all payments. That is another fear, namely, that something will happen to the tenant, who will stop paying the council and then the landlord completely loses all the payment. These are the fears landlords have about taking HAP tenants.
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
I will take the question about one thing that could be changed. To be honest, I would change two things. The first thing is that the bedsit ban was a mistake. It was a bad mistake when the Green Party got rid of the bedsits because it took out Lidl and Aldi and kept Superquinn. That is basically what was done. The prices were lashed up and the whole bottom tier of the market was taken out. The new legislation being proposed for the pre-1963 buildings and house shares is again taking out the cheaper, lower tier - the €600, €700 and €800 a month properties around Dublin. This is a mistake because it is having a massive effect from the point of people living at home until they are 40. If I let out a place, I will have more than 200 people coming to view it. I know only one person is going to get it, as do they. From that perspective, it has distorted the market incredibly.
The second thing I would get rid of are the rent controls. I can totally understand that if Eoin were here, he would be giving out to me, but, in reality, when we look throughout the world, which countries have done it properly? Finland has done it properly. It had the same system as ours - although it was not as punitive - but they got rid of it and it worked. Argentina has only been doing it for a year and half and it appears rents are now dropping and, according to The Wall Street Journal, supply is up 170%. The rent controls stifle landlords coming into the market, stifle supply and stifle everything. Until we have an increase-----
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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My final question was to the witnesses from Threshold.
Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:
Regarding the minimum standards, I touched on it earlier and advised caution. Again, we understand why the Department and the Minister are looking to stimulate supply, but if we are looking at houses, at homes that people are to live in, thrive in, have children in and have all parts of their lives in, then a single-aspect home can be a fairly grim prospect, especially in the winter months. A size of 32 sq. m is also very small if you are also working from home. Many people are working on a hybrid basis. I would, therefore, advise caution.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I call Senator Joe Flaherty.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome all the speakers, especially the representatives of the IPOA and IPAV. I wish Genevieve McGuirk the very best in her new role that she takes up on 1 August. We will obviously miss Mr. Davitt being here as he has been a great voice for the market and for auctioneers. I am especially pleased to see landlords represented here. Too often, we do not hear the voice of landlords. It is a very important voice. Everybody here appreciates that we have a housing crisis and there are many victims of the housing crisis, namely, people who cannot get accommodation, but an unheard of victim in all this, though, have been the mom-and-pop landlords, the small-scale landlords, who - despite our best efforts - we have driven out of the market as a Government and as legislators. We must stand up and take ownership of it.
I agree with Mr. Davitt that the system is broken and all we are doing is tinkering with it. If we cast our minds back, and Fintan McGill from County Longford will be familiar with this, when the crash came in 2008, we had 2,500 vacant properties in County Longford. All of them were investor properties, mom-and-pop investor properties bought for a pension fund. If we did not have those 2,500 houses, we would be in a diabolical situation. This is replicated right across the country.
We do not like international investors. We know that. Our Opposition parties do not like that. We need to make it attractive for the small investor - the small landlord - to come back into the market. We are not doing that. Nobody in the Government has ever grabbed the big issue of the day. We need to make it financially incentivised for landlords to come back into the market. We had section 23 and we had the rural renewal scheme. They were much criticised in the aftermath of the crash, but at the same time these were the schemes that gave us 2,500 houses in County Longford. We desperately need them now because no other houses were built. Is it time for the Government to look at an incentive scheme to encourage small-scale landlords to come back into the market, whether we incentivise them through taxation or through being able to get a pension top-up later? I am posing this question to the IPOA and the IPAV. I would like to get both perspectives.
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
The Senator is right.
The first and most logical thing I would do if I was the Minister for Finance tomorrow would be to bring back in the 2012-19 capital gains tax roll-over relief. With this new legislation coming down the road and with the numbers who are talking to us about notices to quit and how to get out, there is an awful lot of money sitting around.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I can see that but we need something to get people back in at scale. That will address one of your members'-----
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
One of the ways would be the roll-over of reliefs on capital gains - the Senator is absolutely right - which is section 23, in some way that actually makes sense. This idea that one is taxed at 52% on all the rent just really is not financially viable if the rents are only able to go up 0.7% in 2025.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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So basically we have to incentivise landlords to get back into the market.
Ms Mary Conway:
I am a proud culchie. I am a Sligo woman. I believe the debate is always too Dublin-focused and that we forget what is going on down the country. If a landlord down the country leaves the market, he or she is not going to be replaced by another one. This is a really a big concern to us. At least in Dublin the institutional investors, whether we like them or hate them, are still providing housing. The country really needs a bit more focus. I absolutely agree there needs to be some kind of an incentive.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I agree that we would never hear somebody down the country saying they are buying a house to rent it out. That is not going to happen now. With regard to the IPAV, do we need to incentivise people, be it through a section 23 rural renewal scheme, to get building and get these mom-and-pop landlords back into the market?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
Yes, I believe this. Many times the IPAV has called for section 23 to come back again to incentivise landlords to come into the market. While I am aware of the figures Deputy Stanley quoted from one year ago that there were extra landlords in the market and there were extra tenants in the market, if we go back many years before that we will find that from 2021 to 2023 we lost some 400,000 landlords. Those figures are with the PRTB. We can look at one year if we want to, if that is really what we are going to be looking at in the rental market, but it is a lot longer than one year and the history is a lot longer than that. We need to bring people back into the market.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I am conscious of time and I want to pursue this point on section 23.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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In the IPAV's discussions with Government, and in particular with the Department of Finance, has the IPAV been given any indication that something similar to a section 23 will be possible in the budget?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
We have not been kicked out, let us put it like that. We have talked to the Government on numerous occasions. The big thing about it is that we do not have to bring back in a section 23 such as we had prior. We could bring in something different. I am sure the Department of Finance could come up with something different. Whether we like it or not, to get landlords back into the market we need an incentive for them to get back into the marketplace.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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The single biggest fix for the rental market is to get mom-and-pop landlords in and the quickest way to do this is to financially incentivise them.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for being here; it is much appreciated. I wish to address Threshold on the gutting of the tenant in situ scheme and the limiting of funding. To me, that scheme was the best method the Government and the local authorities had for preventing homelessness. I have dealt with loads of landlords in Cork who were willing to sell and wanted to keep their tenants in the property. The council wanted to buy the properties and the tenants wanted to stay in them. It was one of the few things where everyone was on the one page. In Cork this scheme prevented 100 children and 65 adults from entering homelessness last year. Councillor Michelle Gould put in a question to Cork City Council and the response was that in 2021 a total of 110 families, including 224 children, went into homeless emergency accommodation. In 2022 it was 127 families with 235 children. To skip ahead, for the first six months of this year, with 149 families with 292 children in emergency accommodation, this will be highest figure of all time. Do the witnesses feel that given what has happened with the tenant in situ scheme, which is virtually at a stop, this will lead to more homelessness?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
Threshold was very supportive of the tenant in situ scheme. We saw it as a very effective intervention in preventing homelessness. Obviously there have been some difficulties in the actual doing of it. Buying and selling a house is always difficult and complicated but we were very supportive of its overall purpose and we did want to see it expanded. We actually want to see it become part of the mainstream delivery of social housing. While some will say that it does not actually add stock, it does add to the social housing stock. This would lead into the Housing Commission's recommendation to increase social and cost rental to 20% of all stock. We were quite shocked to see how quickly the funds ran out this year and it is now not available as a homeless intervention tool for the remainder of the year in the vast majority of local authorities. Instead of that being a financial allocation, we would like to see it set out as a target for the number of homes that need to be purchased under tenant in situ scheme each year, and that figure to be determined based on the number of notices of termination being submitted to the RTB.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms O'Reilly for that. There are a lot of good, decent landlords out there who want to look after their tenants and who want to work with the council. Sometimes I do not agree with everything that happens with landlords but one must acknowledge that the vast majority of them are decent people. They have been left stranded in all of this for months. From the witnesses' point of view, was there are lot of disappointment at the way the tenant in situ scheme was gutted?
Ms Mary Conway:
We know there were a few people who were two years pushing and trying to complete to keep their tenant in situ. In the end they had to give up because they were under pressure from the banks and they just had to sell and issue termination notices. The scheme is a win-win for everybody, for the landlords and for the tenants. To think that the funds have run out by around March this year seems absolutely crazy. I have a landlord who is trying to keep his tenants and Fingal County Council said, "Absolutely no", but it took us eight weeks to get a response from the council to say that this was not going to happen and that it has stopped doing it . Why does it take eight weeks to get a response to an email?
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I would like it on record that some landlords are actually still leaving the tenants in place hoping that the tenant in situ scheme will be reopened. They have to be thanked for that, and the local authorities who do unbelievable work.
The is also one point on HAP. With rents now going up, would the witnesses recommend that rent rises must be matched? I have just had to step out to speak to a lady who cannot pay her rent. Her rent is €2,000 per month. She is getting a maximum HAP from Cork City Council and she is making a contribution of just over €750. This lady has three kids and she also has to pay rent to the council of €48. She is being driven into homelessness because of the cost of the rents. Would the witnesses advise an increase in HAP to match rent increases?
Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:
The short answer is "Yes". There are a number of interventions. Obviously, investing in cost rental and social housing is absolutely key, and that ramping up of cost rental. In the interim, and the housing assistance payment point was made earlier, rents will increase at the end of six years and that will have huge affordability issues for a growing swathe of the population. This will probably have to be addressed partly by HAP but ultimately structurally we need to see larger players with a social remit providing both social housing and cost rental housing at scale to look a bit more like our counterparts in mainland Europe.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The Threshold report states that almost 3,000 renters came to Threshold in the first six months of 2025. Homelessness is an awful issue for a family or an individual. Why has this become so prominent at the moment and what is causing it?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
We have seen an increase in landlords selling. We can only try to guess at the reasons landlords sell based on what we hear reported, what we hear from some of our colleagues who are here today, and what is in the RTB surveys of landlords. Certainly, in one of the first RTB surveys done, perhaps five years ago, many landlords were just coming to that time when they were getting out. They had planned to be a landlord to have a home to retire on and to sell that home, so it was coming to that point. For some of them it was timing and the tax benefit, the capital gains relief that was mentioned a while ago. In 2019 we started to see that coming to an end and it made sense for some landlords to start exiting at that point to get the benefit of that. In some of the most recent reports from the surveys of the RTB we see that some landlords have started to cite financial reasons for getting out.
From what we see, those are possibly some of the reasons for it, based on the reports and the limited information out there.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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It is alarming when we see the number of people coming to us. I again compliment Threshold on the great work it is doing trying to keep a roof over people's heads.
Going forward, what do we need to do to encourage landlords to stay in the rental market? It is not easy at the moment.
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
The Government could take away half of the regulations. As Ms McCormick stated earlier, the regulations are unbelievably complex. Not only do we have the 20-odd pages of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, we have the standards for a flat. In 2011, it was about 20 pages long. Now, the standards alone for what one must put into a flat are more than a 100 pages long. The regulations just keep coming. What has happened is that all the housing committees since 2004 keep adding amendments. The process must be restarted and rethought. That would make it so much better for renters and for landlords. There is no reason for it to be so complicated, but it is. That is one of the major issues.
Tax was mentioned earlier, which does not make it financially viable. Another issue is leaving the rent controls at 2%. If I let out a flat in 2015, at present I am getting what I let it out for plus about 11% or 12%. The increase can only be 2% or the HICP, which was 0.7% in 2025, for the rest of that tenancy's life or unless I can sell the place if I am a small landlord. From that point of view, in ten years' time, that rent is going to be far below the current level of rent. Inflation is not 0.7% in 2025. Milk used to be 75 cent a litre and it is now €1.25. Inflation has gone way up. We need to have a mechanism to bring the nearly 240,000 existing tenancies into the real world. That is how we get the existing landlords to stay. It is easier to keep existing landlords than it is to get new ones.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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We need to simplify the criteria and deal with the red tape. If we do not, we will have fewer landlords in the market.
Going back to Mr. Davitt, what does he think would encourage people to buy property and rent it to tenants? It is going the opposite way. Given his background, does he think anything more can be done?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
We have spoken about the figure of 3,000 that Threshold raised. The main reason for those people giving notice is that they want to get vacant possession of the property in order to sell it. That is the one reason that we have not discussed here. We have been skirting around it and talking about different things but that is one of the biggest reasons. Until such time as that is changed, landlords will continue to leave. As Mr. Deverell says, it is much easier to keep a landlord in the market than to try and get a new one into it. If we have to get a new one in, we need encouragement, be it an incentive or whatever else. We need to get landlords into the market, so we must encourage them to come back into the marketplace. At the moment, when someone buys a property for €345,000 and rents it out to somebody, the owner gets one month's deposit upfront and one month's rent, but if the owner has to give an NOT to the person, 56 days notice is required, which means that he or she is behind by a month's rent already. It is ridiculous, to say the least. There must be big changes in the law and they need to come in sooner rather than later if we want to bring more landlords into the marketplace.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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If we do not change the law sooner rather than later, we will have a lot more people homeless.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will turn to the IPOA at the outset as I did not get to it in the last session. Landlords have contacted me, in particular those classified as large landlords although they may be quite small and have five, six or seven units. Do the witnesses expect a lot of them to exit the market before March because of the changes coming in then?
Ms Mary Conway:
Some landlords are concerned that if they have properties coming off an interest-only arrangement or they are coming under pressure, they feel it is better to issue their termination notices now, sell the properties and try to sort out the situation with their banks because it will be much more difficult to do so after March when a no-fault eviction will be a limited option. That is driving a lot of fear among landlords, in particular those under financial pressure.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is the IPOA getting a lot of inquiries in that space from those landlords who are classified as large but who are not necessarily institutional landlords? They are ordinary landlords but they have more than four properties.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. I will quickly turn to the IPAV. In his opening statement Mr. Davitt referred to the negative controls on landlords. He said it needed to turn more towards incentives. He mentioned section 23. Could he elaborate on exactly what incentives he refers to? What is he calling for?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
We are referring to some sort of incentives to get landlords into the marketplace. Tax is the big thing at the moment, so if someone bought a property, he or should could get a tax allowance every year on the property for a number of years. There are many ways we could do this. The Department of Finance could come up with a way to do it, perhaps something not unlike section 23. The incentives do not have to go on forever. They have to go on until such time as they do their work. Section 23 went on forever and a lot of people felt it could not be changed. An incentive is required until such time as it does its work and gets landlords into the marketplace. It can then be wiped out and there is no problem.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is Mr. Davitt saying tax incentives are needed?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
Tax incentives are the big things because by the time a landlord pays all his or her charges and then pays 52% of what is left, which is the net profit he or she has at the end of the day, there is very little left. If we look at the scenario I put in the statement where a landlord buys a property for €345,000, it is a small amount of money in the marketplace at the moment if one wants to buy somewhere at the level to rent. Section 23 is very important. We could take out the tax element and instead of landlords paying 48% or 52%, it could be brought down to 30%. We thought that was going to happen a couple of years ago but it did not.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will turn very briefly to Threshold. I was going to ask about HAP limits but Deputy Gould asked a question on that. I thank Threshold for the work it does because, as public representatives, we regularly engage with tenants who are in touch with Threshold. When people are served a notice to quit and they present for homeless accommodation, does Threshold notice a trend whereby it is more difficult to secure homeless accommodation through local authorities? I notice that as a public representative and I wonder if Threshold is picking up on the trend as well. Local authorities ask if people can go back into family accommodation or do something other than present as homeless. Is that something Threshold is noticing?
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
It has not been brought to my attention of late. We saw it start happening a couple of years ago. Threshold and other organisations engaged with members of this committee on it at the time. It has not been brought to my attention recently but I will check with our advisers in case it is. What we find is that perhaps there is a little bit more pushback. Local authorities are more inclined to say people should go talk to Threshold or bring something to the RTB. They tell people they must challenge what is happening. They try to push it out for as long as they can, which sometimes results in people possibly overholding.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I might just ask Deputy McGrath to step in for me for two minutes. Deputy Gould is next in the Sinn Féin slot. I will give him three minutes. I will add a few minutes on to the session if the witnesses do not mind to give members an opportunity to ask questions. I apologise for having to step out.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Threshold is trying to help renters and prevent people from becoming homeless. I have never seen homelessness at the level it is currently at. I have never seen the number of families and children affected. From the information supplied by Cork City Council, 46 families have been in emergency accommodation for more than a year. If we go back to 2021, there was none. There has been an escalation in the level of homelessness. In 2022, there were nine families homeless. The rate is going up. It is an absolute crisis. There is a homelessness emergency, especially when it comes to children. I know it is outside the remit of the witnesses but there are enough local authority homes boarded up to house every family in the State. We are looking at landlords being under pressure. Everyone is under pressure.
From Threshold's point of view, if there was one piece of advice or one thing it would ask the Government to deliver to try to prevent homelessness, or as a help to the organisation to try to prevent homelessness, what would it be?
Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:
Activating all possible avenues for supply is key. There was the recent league table, as it were, of performance by local authorities in respect of delivery of social housing. Some large urban local authorities did not come out very well in that regard.
For us, there is no single silver bullet. Obviously, supply is key. I mentioned the provision of social housing through either the local authorities or the approved housing bodies, the ramping up of cost rental and the tackling of dereliction and vacancy. By the way, that last does requires taxation on the other side rather than carrot. It requires the stick because very little is happening on dereliction.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for interrupting. It is just that time is against us. This may be something to put to the other two groups. I have a major issue with the number we are being given. There 146,000 vacant properties. I will tell a short story. I got a property put on Cork City Council's derelict sites list a number of years ago. I met the owner in the bar one night and he told me I was an awful bags. I asked him why and he said it was because I had put his property on the derelict sites list. I told him I had as it was empty 32 years. I told this story in the last Dáil. As the property went on the derelict sites list, he was paying 7% of the value of the house. He went away and renovated it into a three-bedroom apartment and a two-bedroom apartment. If members want to google it, there is a pub on Blarney Street in Cork called The Joshua Tree and right next door to it they will be able to see the brand new doors and windows. That landlord sat on that property. He had only owned it for 28 years. "For the love of God", I said to him. He is a good guy. Maybe incentives such as the new croí cónaithe scheme and the new derelict sites funding helped, but what can we do to incentivise landowners and people who have these properties? What can the Government do? We could solve a housing crisis if we could get those properties in play.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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No, he has loads of properties.
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
A lot of people are afraid of letting out because they cannot get their assets back. We know that from talking to people. What can the Government do? It can make it that it is not so impossible to get one's property back. It can change this idea of four tenancies being a large landlord. These are the stumbling blocks in the whole thing. If one buys an asset of any other asset class, one can get it back, but if one becomes a landlord, one immediately starts being limited by the legislation. That is the first thing, and the only thing that would encourage people like the Deputy's friend who have vacant properties to actually put them back-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Deverell is using the word "friend" very loosely there.
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
There is one big thing for landlords like that. We see thousands of them across the country, including in Dublin, and we have raised this issue for many years. Indeed, one morning I raised it at a committee meeting of a particular group and I was nearly run out of the room with people asking where the figures had come from, and what the story was with them, etc. However, we all accept now that there are well over 100,000, at the worst, vacant properties in the country. There any many people like the Deputy's friend. The good thing for his friend - using the terminology again - was that he could do something about it. Many people cannot do something about it. The one thing that such a person needs to do is to sell that property as quickly as he or she can to somebody who is going to bring it into the market place. What encouragement do such people need? When they pay their capital gains tax or get their money for their properties, they get a discount. This should be done for possibly one year or 18 months to give these landlords an opportunity to sell their properties and pay less capital gains tax. It would bring huge yields.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is Fine Gael's slot again if there are further questions.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The question I have again is how the three groups can work together to make more properties available for leasing. It seems to be going in the opposite way at the moment. Is there a way we can bridge gaps? Is there a way we can get landlords back in to rent properties to tenants? That seems to be the big issue. In fairness to Mr. Davitt, he said landlords were nearly pulling out rather than getting involved at the moment. We need to simplify it to see how we can get them back in. I would like Threshold's view on the same thing. We need to do more. What more can we do to try to encourage landlords?
Mr. Maurice Deverell:
Trust is a really big part of the whole thing. The rent controls came in in 2016. They were supposed to be in for three years; then it was ten years. The Part 4 tenancies came in in 2004 for four years to start with, then six years and then indefinitely. Now, we have the new proposal that is to run on a six-year term. How many people here actually believe that, in ten year's time, it will still be six years? I know many of our members do not believe that will be the case. The six years will be made indefinite or it will be made for a lot longer. It has to come out and the Government states it will do something and will not change it next week. For years, that is what we have been dealing with. Legislation comes out and then some Minister changes it next week. Trust is a big part of the Government getting around this.
Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:
One thing for which we have been asking for some time is a vision or a policy for the private rental sector and the role it is going to play in housing delivery into the future. At present, there is no specific role set out. For many years, it was a transitory sector. It was referred to as the forgotten sector. In 2011, there was meant to be a move towards making it a more stable long-term tenure. HAP was brought in in 2014 to supply social housing but that all seemed to fall by the wayside and there is no clear path now for it. There needs to be an agreement at Government level as to what role it will play in the long term, and that will guide and shape the policy and the legislation going forward. We would certainly agree that we need that stability in policy and legislation. While the current Minister has said the changes he has proposed are going to be for the long term, there is no sunset clause. We can understand why some people might think the next Government could change these. No more than with Sláintecare, despite its challenges, there was whole-of-government and cross-party support and agreement that this was the way forward. Certainly, that is needed in terms of the private rental sector and the role it will play into the future.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I know we have a serious issue on our hands. What will happen after 1 March is going to be very interesting but we need trust and we need to get landlords back into the system. If we do not, it is downhill we will be going.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Cooney. It comes to me now and I will try to keep it tight. I want to let Deputies Ahern and Stanley back in for a couple of minutes. Rent increases were mentioned by the representatives from Threshold. What are their views on them? The landlord and tenancy figures are up over the last year. Do they have any comments on that?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
On the figures and Threshold saying this is the reason the rental figures and the rental prices will be going up, I do not believe that. It is not right to say everybody will pay a much higher rent. I do not think that is the case. Everybody will pay market rent and whatever the market says, people will pay it, and well and good. It may well be higher for somebody whom a landlord has been renting a property to since 2016 at 50% of the rent. In the number of years the tenant has been there, the landlord has been discriminated against because he or she cannot charge a full rent for that property. Now we are in the situation where people can change the rent after six years. If someone is going to be a big landlord or a small landlord, it is all the one. If someone can change the rent after six years, then he or she can bring the rent up to the market rate, whatever that is. I am one of the people who has seen rents going down as well as going up. I hear many people saying recently that rents never go down. That is not the case. I saw it in the early 2000s, which was not that long ago, and it could happen again. I have seen landlords being under pressure and the tenants coming to agents telling them there is another apartment out the road or in the same block where tenants are paying less rent and they want to bring their own rent down. That has been happening. I do not believe this particular scenario we are talking about where rents will increase after 1 March. After 1 March, these changes are going to be very good for a landlord. Sorry to disagree with Mr. Deverell, but whether the period is six years, ten years or 26 years, I do not see what the difference is. If a person is a landlord, then that person is a landlord. He or she is in the market to rent a property. That person has an option to sell the property on to somebody else. Those properties are going to be sold at investment values. They are not going to be sold at market value any longer.
I do not see why a landlord cannot sell their property on if someone has been living in it for six, ten or whatever number of years. If they want to dispose of it, they can dispose of it in the market place. I do not see what the problem is there, to be honest. The rents we are discussing will not happen. I cannot see them happening. That is a fallacy, and we should not even discuss that at the moment. If you have to pay market rent, you have to pay market rent. Whether it is higher or lower, it is all the one. You have to pay it, however. That is the way I look at it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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What about the landlords, because the numbers are up?
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
I addressed that. The figures relating to landlords are up. The figures for tenants being up was mentioned by Deputy Stanley. The Cathaoirleach is probably as well aware as I am that landlords have been taking properties out of the market for two years because they had no choice. Some of those properties are coming back into the market. It is a very small percentage - between 1.3% and 1.6%. From a leasing point of view, that is roughly more than 2,000 properties and 1,200 landlords. Those figures across the entire country are very small. What hurt the market was the 40,000 landlords left it in the period between 2021 and 2023. It was not ones where there is a small percentage increase who hurt the market and who are the ones the RTB tells us about. We can look at different figures that will suit us at various times, but we are on the ground looking at what is happening and we do not see more landlords coming into the market. We see them giving notices of termination, which is what Threshold is talking about here. We know the reason they are giving them. They are selling properties, it is as simple as that, and have been doing so since 2018. The figures are there.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have gone over my time, and I will not take more. I will bring Deputies Hearne and Stanley back in for a couple of minutes more to ask direct questions.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I have question for Threshold and then one for the landlords. First, on the scale of the housing crisis, from rents to homeless, the Housing Commission called for a radical reset of policy. Threshold has outlined its agreement with that. Does it see evidence of that in the current Government policy? Is the Government doing what is needed to address this emergency?
Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:
I understand it is in the process of considering a raft of recommendations. Some are probably already in train and some are being planned. I imagine some are less palatable and may be less of a priority. It is still relatively early to call because there were so many recommendations. Some have been partially completed and some require the agency of local authorities and other players. It is something we are monitoring. The proof of the pudding will be in the new housing plan. For us, as Ms O’Reilly stated, the challenge with Housing for All was that the private rented sector was scattered, Balkanised or peppered across the plan. A clear statement of intent of the direction of travel with regard to rental housing and the private rented sector in particular would be very welcome in the plan. That would show the bona fides of the Government with regard to the Housing Commission recommendations.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Great. For the landlord organisations, Threshold’s research shows that most renters do not want to rent. Just 6% of those surveyed are renting by choice. Most renters want to own their own homes or be in social housing and have permanent security of tenure. Is there an issue with that? Just 8% of housing in Ireland in the 1990s was owned by private landlords. There was majority home ownership at the time. Is our problem that we do not have high enough home ownership and that we need to deliver homes that people can buy rather than more private rental properties that will leave people unable to buy homes? Many people say they are paying rent rather than being able to save to buy homes.
Ms Mary Conway:
In an ideal world, everybody would have their own home. Private landlords provide transient housing for people coming here from abroad to work on short-term contracts, for students and for those who might be setting up home for the first time together to see if it will work out. There is a need for private landlords in the market. In an ideal world, it would be lovely if everyone could own their own home, but that is not going to happen any time soon.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I would like the views of the Irish Property Owners Association on top-up rents. Over the past 20 years, particularly in the past ten, I have come across the increased use of such rents. Particularly with HAP, a tenant will pay so much to the council but there is then a top-up payment to the landlord that is far in excess of the amount of the top-up. As a result, the tenant ends up paying double or triple what the differential rent is to the local authority. What is the landlords’ view on this? It is widespread. They mentioned being on the ground. I have been fairly well available on the ground for many years, and I meet people. I understand it is not only on one side, but will Mr. Deverell address that, please? What is his view and what is the association doing to stamp that out among its members?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Where it is an undeclared top-up?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Is Ms McCormick reminding the association’s members of that?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Is the organisation reminding its members of that?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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On unkempt private tenancy accommodation, the inside might be great and well-kept and the tenant might have no rubbish or anything else lying around outside. There is then the physical condition of the property, however. I could take Ms McCormick to estates and tell her which properties are rented just by walking around. There are some houses that you cannot tell if it is the case, but you can clearly tell the difference with others in circumstances where it is clear that exterior work needs to be done but which has not been done. Will Mr. Deverell indicate if there is a the solution to that?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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What about the payment of management fees where there is a management company involved? You come across situations where there are owner-occupiers of apartments. Some landlords are paying fees and the local authority will be paying if it has a number of units in a complex. I have come across situations where a considerable number of private landlords who own apartments in complexes are not paying. What is the solution to that?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Deputy. We have another session.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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This is a really important issue.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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What is happening means that complexes are going to rack and ruin.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in to assist the committee. Our plan was to have a full two-and-a-half-hour session with a number of other organisations, but that did not happen. In order to hold the meeting before the recess, we felt it was important to have both the witnesses and the RTB in. We might invite everyone to come before us again in the autumn in order to facilitate a full two-and-a-half-hour session for further discussion. I know this session has been a bit constrained. I apologise for that.
I thank everyone for attending. I wish Mr. Davitt well. He is retiring from his role, although I know he is not retiring by any means. Mr. McGill, a county man of my own back in Longford, has taken over the role as president of IPAV. I wish him well with it.
We will discuss this matter further with representatives from the Residential Tenancies Board in the next session..
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased we have the opportunity to continue our discussion with the following representatives from the Residential Tenancies Board: Owen Keegan, chairperson; Rosemary Steen, director; Louise Loughlin, deputy director; and Brian Gallwey, senior research and policy manager. Copies of the opening statements have been issued to members. I propose that we publish those statements and take them as read. Is that agreed? Agreed.
We will now move to questions from members. I am trying to judge times with people coming in and out and some members not turning up. That is why I am trying to keep the number of minutes down. I will let people back in later if I can. As usual, I will try to keep it tight.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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One of the issues that is constantly raised with public representatives regarding the RTB involves the delays in resolving complaints or disputes on the landlord and tenant side. Where does the RTB see things now in terms of its timeline for dealing with disputes? Does it see that timeline coming down? It has been said that additional resources are being made available. Could the witnesses comment on that? I also have a question about third-party complaints but I will first focus on the RTB's ability to deal with disputes and complaints, the delays that are often involved and resources.
Mr. Owen Keegan:
I am happy to say that we did get extra resources in 2024 and a significant number of additional staff. This has brought our dispute handling time down to the agreed key performance indicator, KPI, with the Department. I can give the Deputy more information on that. We are constantly in negotiation with the Department about resources. It is a very dynamic environment. As the regulatory environment changes, we make our case to the Department and the Department has been very supportive. We are in discussions with the Department at the moment because major changes are imminent. We put in a case for additional resources and there will be significant fall-out from that.
We are very satisfied with regard to complaints. There has been a very significant reduction in complaints regarding our service. We can give the Deputy more details on that.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
I am happy to give more details about that. Thanks to the investment mentioned by the Cathaoirleach, we processed 11,047 dispute cases in 2024, while 5,290 adjudication and mediation hearings were held. That was up 34% on 2023. We held 1,302 tribunal hearings, up 74% on 2023, which is a really significant jump in the number being processed. We issued 4,207 determination orders, which would have been up 41% on 2023. While we accept that there were issues, we worked very hard as a team to resolve them. The average time to process a mediation case was seven weeks for the applications received and processed in 2024. We have now digitised that whole experience and very successfully launched a new service last week. That investment is already showing. A total of 1,000 disputes are on this new digital platform - our new dispute resolution centre - and we are very confident that we will be able to continue to process disputes more efficiently towards the end of this year. We are very pleased that we have made those service improvements.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is very welcome to hear. Is the increase in hearings and tribunals the result of the RTB getting to them sooner or is it the result of an increased number of disputes?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
The number of disputes is high. The total number of disputes has been growing. There were 11,047 disputes last year, which would have been the highest. It is continuing to trend upwards because of issues around the rental market of which we would be well aware. The key thing is that processing times are consistent with our service level agreement, SLA, with the Department so we are trying to make sure we provide a very good service to everybody involved - landlords, tenants and third parties.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for the presentation and for their engagement with all of us outside the meetings here. An average turnaround time of seven weeks for mediation was mentioned. Do the witnesses have the equivalent figures for adjudications and tribunals?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
Yes. If the Deputy like me to mention them, the average time to process an adjudication case in 2024 was 17 weeks for applications received. That was just slightly above our target of 16 weeks. When I last checked the figures, we were back within 16 weeks but it has gone up and down slightly month by month during the spring. I am confident that the new digital resource will be of use. That is the great work of the panel members we have hearing those very effectively and quickly. The average time to process an adjudication case was 23 weeks. Does the Deputy want me to go through-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What was the average time for adjudication?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What was it for tribunals?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Government has proposed some very significant changes to the Residential Tenancies Act in terms of security of tenure, definitions of landlords and the rent pressure zones. To what extent has the RTB been consulted on the detail of those? Regardless of one's view of those changes, they are quite complex, particularly the different definitions of landlords and the different security of tenure provisions. Regarding enforcement, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Keegan said the RTB received an increase in resources, is he satisfied that the RTB will have sufficient resources to deal with what, ultimately, will be an even more complex regulatory landscape post that legislation? We assume it will be passed in the autumn and will be in place from March 2026.
Mr. Owen Keegan:
It is fair to say that we are working closely with the Department. When we got sight of the details, we estimated and identified areas where we will need to do additional work and sussed out the implications for the RTB. We have looked at what the resource requirement will be and submitted that to the Department. That is being considered.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Would that have been after the publication of the details post-Cabinet or would the RTB have been involved prior to that?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
We have regular governance meetings with the Department and different aspects of the proposed regime were discussed at these - not in detail but we were asked to comment on, for example, implications around rent pressure zones. The detail of what was proposed by Government at that stage would not have been shared. It is important to note that I would support the view that an all-island rent pressure zone in this context has made things simpler for people to understand in that we had seen challenges where rent pressure zones were not applied to certain counties. We spoke about that at the quarterly update. Mr. Gallwey might comment on that. Aspects of that related to the data we were publishing on a quarterly basis were discussed with us. Since the publication of the proposals, we have discussed some of the critical resourcing issues we may face, particularly around the need for us to deal with the notice of a termination, which are much more critical. That is part of what the chairperson referred to regarding the ongoing discussions. We were all clear as part of the quarterly updates that the rent pressure zone regime was showing some regional challenges and that would have been discussed with the Department at the quarterly governance updates.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am out of time but I might come back to that in the next round.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Regarding payments and how they are worked out, a landlord made that payment to the RTB in mid-May, which they were meant to do, and in early June, the landlord received a reminder that the person was not registered, so they made a phone call and could not get the details. On 14 June, they got a final reminder to say the payments still had not been made. At that stage, they decided to write a second cheque and send it on, which they did. On 21 June, they got confirmation that the payment was received. After that, they got a cheque back, which was more than double of what it had been. The amount paid was €240 plus €10. One can work that out. That was fine. That came back in the post. The landlord could not understand it. Lo and behold, on 8 July, the landlord got another letter saying that the person was not registered. I do not know how that happened but it still has not been sorted despite the amount of time and effort between the landlord and the RTB over and back with phone calls. This has gone on since early May.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
On behalf of the RTB, I apologise for that. That should not have happened. Ms Loughlin will comment on the detail of that as she is in charge of our customer service team. We are aware of some issues around our registration system. I thank the Deputy for highlighting it. If he gives us the details, we will try to work through and make sure we understand exactly what happened. I apologise for that happening.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
As Ms Steen said, that is not an acceptable customer service experience for the Deputy's constituent. I am more than happy to take the details of it from the Deputy. I can look into the case and revert to him directly so we can try to understand what happened.
It sounds like it has got quite messy quite quickly. We should be able to unpack that and figure out what happened.
I might take the opportunity, though, if the Deputy does not mind, to mention that, as regards our customer service statistics for last year, we have had a big reduction in the number of calls and emails and complaints. That was largely to do with the attention we paid to the registration system and resolving many of those issues for our customers, primarily landlords in that instance. Last year, we received around 154,000 phone calls and around 208,000 emails, which was down 29% and 32%, respectively, from 2023. We also received a total of 321 complaints from customers in 2024, which was a reduction of 53% from 678 in 2023. That is a reflection of the work that had been done but, clearly, there are some examples, as the Deputy has just given us, where things are not as they should be, and we need to look into that. We also responded to 265 email queries from Members of the Oireachtas in 2024, which was down by 45% in 2023.
Finally, on that matter, as regards our latest data on calls up to May of this year, registration queries, which would include the Deputy's constituent, accounted for around 1,600 calls, which was around 30% of calls, so the Deputy can see they still represent a good bit.
We have some work to do, absolutely, and I am more than happy to take the details of that specific case.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Loughlin for the reply but, again, it is the inconvenience put on both the RTB and the landlord, which is not good enough, in fairness.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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No, however much good is meant.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. I emphasise the question of resourcing. As to how the RTB responds to this, it is a difficult question, but given the complexity of the new measures that have been introduced, do the witnesses expect that there will be an increase in disputes as a result? Maybe they could give us some sense of their expectation. Has the RTB done analysis of the work required to respond to that?
We have just had landlord organisations in. Could the witnesses comment on this gap between the number of registered landlords and what the census showed, a significantly higher number of landlords? I know the RTB has done some work on that, but do the witnesses still think there is a problem of landlords not registering? What do they think the scale of that problem is?
On rent arrears, the analysis shows very clearly that rents will increase as a result of these new measures. I was looking at the figures, and disputes relating to rent arrears numbered about 403. I think the figure was in the region of 500 in 2020 and 2021. It is now up to 625 in quarter 1 of 2025. Does the RTB see the issue of rent arrears increasing? Does it have any sense of the pressure that renters are under in terms of affordability in rents?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
The Deputy is probably aware that in the last year the CSO undertook an analysis where it compared the census data to our data. It identified a difference of about 73,000 that it found on the census that were not in RTB data. It looked at the characteristics of RTB tenancies and compared it to those 73,000, and from that it identified about 25,000 tenancies that had the same characteristics as RTB tenancies. Off the back of that work, the RTB has undertaken targeted campaigns, specifically in the counties that have showed the most possibly unregistered tenancies. I do not know if Ms Steen wants to talk a little more about the campaigns that were undertaken.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
As the Deputy might be aware, in certain counties we saw clear compliance issues. Most recently, we visited Galway to do an event there and to talk to all the stakeholders to ensure that we tackle registration. We intend returning there in the autumn to do a dedicated push around registration in the Galway market, particularly where we can see that the increases in rent are above the national average also, thanks to the statistics my colleague has done. If it is okay, I might address the Deputy's issue around the resourcing for the new-----
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Does the RTB have an estimate of the number of landlords it thinks are still unregistered out of that 25,000?
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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The outstanding figure.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
-----approximate figure was 8,000. We have tried to break that down by county. That is why we are targeting Galway in particular as a large block of that. We have limited resources so we have to target the area we feel will deliver most. We drove a very substantial national communication around the situation in the Galway market, which was well received by the stakeholders in Galway when we met them, and there is an acknowledgment that more work needs to be done in that community to get out what is required from a landlord and tenant perspective. The Deputy will see more activity from us on that. I am very clear in my view on that.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Just the rent question then.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Both, if Ms Steen can. I am very conscious of the time, Chair.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
They are linked. One of the critical resourcing and regulatory issues we highlighted, as I mentioned in my response to the earlier question, was the need possibly to look at our tenant registration system and potentially whether we need a new tenant registration system post March because of the proposed changes. As regards some of the changes, such as landlord size, previous rental market history and details of the last notice of termination served, we might not have full details of these matters on our current system, so a question arises for us about upping our capabilities around that. That is something on which I and the chair have been very engaged with our board and the Department.
We also need a new team within the RTB, we believe, to verify and monitor notices of terminations due to the new rule on no-fault evictions and the resetting to market rent. At the moment, we normally manage that through our early intervention team. It comes in as part of the disputes process. While we receive notices of terminations, we do not authenticate each one. We note them as part of the statistical reporting, so that will require more work. I have also mentioned the need for increased resourcing of our compliance and enforcement team. We currently have eight investigators to enforce rental law across the entire country and we need to look at that in terms of the resourcing levels for the new regime. That is just a snapshot of the situation.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We might get back to finishing that. I call Senator Aubrey McCarthy.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. Their statement and the RTB's report confirmed that even with high compliance with rent controls, average new rents have risen by 5.5%, which shows that regulation alone cannot fix the underlying supply shortage. What is the witnesses' view on that?
As regards the RTB, the witnesses have said that the large landlords are consolidating. In other words, there are 100-plus tenancies, it seems, rather than smaller landlords. They seem to be exiting. The current regulations and the tax environment seem to drive that consolidation and, therefore, it seems to make it unviable for smaller landlords.
I received two emails from landlords in the last while and they asked my office to intervene. Each had a tenant. One tenant had never moved into the apartment and the tenancy was there for two years and they were unhappy. The second had sublet. My office rang HAP. It said there was nothing it could do. Then my office was recommended to ring the RTB and it said no law had been broken. I am involved in the homeless sector. My fear is there are two units of housing there that are not being used yet there is nothing wrong being done. Is that something the RTB comes across?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
The introduction of our new tenancy management system and annual registration gives us the power to understand what is happening with the landlords in greater detail. Landlords are verified at the point of registration by their personal public service number, PPSN, so we know exactly who the landlords are. If it is a company, we know exactly who they are by their Company Registration Office, CRO, numbers. Over the last year, we have seen the number of private landlords associated with registered tenancies increase by just over 1% - 1.5%, I think - to 104,000. The majority of them are landlords that have just one tenancy.
They comprise 66% of all registered landlords. While they make up the majority of landlords, they only provide about 25% of tenancies. On the other end of the scale, the Senator talked about larger landlords. There are only 121 or so large landlords, those being, landlords with more than 100 tenancies. At a national level, they provide about 13.5% of all tenancies. In Dublin, it is a very different picture where larger landlords provide 27% and smaller landlords provide a smaller proportion. In different parts of the country, there are different-sized landlords providing units. That has been changing significantly. Since our data series began in quarter 2 of 2023, we have seen the proportion of tenancies provided by these large landlords increase significantly from 9.5% to 13.5%. Predominantly, that has been driven by new builds in Dublin.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Does this mean that smaller landlords are leaving?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
We have always seen landlords enter and exit the sector. Throughout this data series since it began in quarter 2 of 2023, we have seen the number of smaller landlords actually increase every quarter except the most recent quarter where we saw a small decline overall in the number of landlords by 1%. That 1% fall is largely in the landlords who have one tenancy. We will always have landlords entering and exiting the sector because of the nature of smaller landlords.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
We will be providing an update on that with our next quarterly release of data on 11 September, which will deal with that matter.
In response to the Senator's first question, on behalf of the RTB, we would agree that supply is a continuing issue in the market. There is no doubt that every unit is of value and a potential home. It is our role as the regulator to ensure that the services we operate are as efficient as possible so that those disputes are resolved. It is important to say that the vast majority of landlords and tenants never end up in dispute. There have only been 11,000 cases out of a total of 300,000 tenancies. Therefore, a very small percentage end up in dispute. Following a successful engagement with mediation, both the tenant and landlord reach agreement. That is why in the new system, we have adopted a mediation-first approach. As regards the issue the Senator is discussing, if the parties could engage in mediation, that matter might be resolved within seven weeks.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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There is no issue. The rent is being paid by HAP. The landlord fears that he is getting paid and he will get into trouble. Following contact with HAP, he was told there was nothing on him. He then contacted the RTB. Everybody is happy but I am saying that two units of housing have been squandered and that is where-----
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I am wondering if it is a bigger issue.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will move on. I call Deputy Séamus McGrath, who has three minutes.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to pick up on the trend there. The RTB's opening statement indicates there has been a 4.6% increase in the first quarter, which is contrary to much of the commentary we hear about landlords getting out and so on. However, it is fair to say that new tenancies would be disproportionately on the larger landlord side than the smaller landlord side. Would the witnesses agree there is an issue with smaller landlords?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
The Deputy is correct. The proportion of tenancies being provided by these larger landlords is increasing and the proportion of tenancies being provided by smaller landlords is decreasing. This is most evident in Dublin where we see the largest volume of tenancies being provided by these large landlords.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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To what extent are unregistered tenancies - landlords who are effectively operating in the black market - an issue across the country?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is that number reducing as a result of the RTB campaign?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Would it be fair to say that those 25,000 are not paying tax on their rental incomes? Would the RTB be able to pick up on that?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If someone is paying tax on his or her rental income, is there a way for the RTB to pick up on the tenancy?
Mr. Owen Keegan:
We are due to get power for data sharing with the Revenue Commissioners, which will assist us. We already share data with local authorities and other public bodies. Access to Revenue data would certainly assist us in targeting our campaigns to ensure compliance with registration requirements.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Right now, though, there is no link between the RTB and the Revenue Commissioners.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
That was part of the new legislation that was required. We are in continuing discussions with the Department about that. However, Revenue does work with us. For example, at the seminar I mentioned in Galway, Revenue attended and it is engaging with local stakeholders there. Where we can in specific cases engage with it, we do, but not to the extent that we formally share data.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Therefore, the RTB cannot pick up on a landlord who is not registered with it but may be paying tax.
My final question is a blunt question but goes back to my earlier question about how long it takes to resolve disputes. If a tenant stops paying rent today and the landlord makes a complaint to the RTB, what is the estimated timeframe for dealing with that and getting the house back for the landlord? These are the complaints landlords make about delays in resolving disputes. If a complaint of that nature presents to the RTB today, how long would it take to reach a conclusion?
Ms Louise Loughlin:
If the landlord decides to pursue it through mediation, it would be within the seven weeks. If the landlord chooses to take the adjudication route, it would take 13 weeks. The Deputy is alluding to the landlord actually having vacant possession of the property. If the tenant does not leave following the conclusion of the JTB process, then the landlord would need to pursue that matter further through the District Court.
As part of the improvements we have been making to our dispute services, we now have an early intervention service. In that situation, the landlord could talk to a member of our in-house early intervention team and that member could take the landlord through the process. It is actually quite an effective mechanism that has been in place for a few months now. We will have more updates later in the year. Effectively, our staff will contact the other party directly with a view to trying to resolve the situation. Therefore, it obviates the need to go through a quasi-judicial process. It is trying to get the parties talking via an RTB official to resolve the matter.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is an early stage-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----negotiation attempt. That is good.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Page 9 of the report indicates that there were 4,693 notices of termination received in quarter one of 2025. I am a TD in Cork city. In Cork city, there were 591 notices of termination received in the first quarter of 2025. How many of these will result in evictions and people either becoming homeless or entering emergency accommodation? When will the quarter 2 figures be released?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
Regarding the quarter 2 figures, we are analysing the data at the moment and they will be published on 11 September with our next quarterly update. We do not currently carry out a cross-analysis with homeless data. We just analyse the data that comes in and provide a county-level breakdown and the reason for the notices of termination.
Mr. Owen Keegan:
Landlords are required to issue notices of termination in every case where they terminate tenancies. In many cases, there would be no dispute. They will have agreed with the tenant but they have to issue the notice because that is the procedure and they have to send us a copy. It does not necessarily lead into a dispute.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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A notice to quit is an eviction; let us call a spade a spade. For the people I am dealing with, a notice to quit is an eviction all over-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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If it is a voluntary exit, they go into homeless emergency accommodation or they end up going into their parents' box room. That is homelessness by another name. I would like the RTB to collect more data because the data it is collecting is really good. When it comes to making Government policy, the more accurate and up-to-date the data, the better.
I would also like to see a major ramping up of the Residential Tenancies Board. I believe local authority housing should come under its remit.
There are local authorities treating their tenants in a disgraceful way, leaving them in mouldy, damp houses with leaks in the roof and freezing cold windows. There are areas where the council will not carry out the work until the tenant leaves or dies. It will then retrofit the house but the person living next door is living in freezing cold because the Government will not provide the funding to retrofit enough houses. Is the RTB in favour of taking over supervision of local authorities so that their tenants have the same rights as private tenants?
Mr. Owen Keegan:
We are aware that was a recommendation of the Housing Commission but, ultimately, it is a matter for the Government and legislation. We will enforce the rental law we are asked to enforce. At the moment, local authority tenants are not subject to the RTB. That is not a matter for the RTB. It is not appropriate for us as a regulator to comment on specific policy matters.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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From my point of view, it is a double standard that local authority tenants do not have the same protections as private tenants. That is not fair.
I recall that, when the RTB was here last year, we discussed a figure of 100 inspections a year. Those are inspections that the RTB takes on itself without complaints coming in. How many were carried out in 2024? I felt there should have been a lot more inspections.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
It is important to understand that the RTB has a number of different compliance pathways. There is a civil process under Part 7A of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, often referred to as investigations and sanctions. The RTB can investigate landlords for ten defined breaches of rental law, which can result in a civil sanction of up to €15,000 and costs of up to €15,000 for each breach of rental law. We also have a criminal process for registration enforcement under section 144 of the legislation, whereby we can prosecute landlords for failing to register a tenancy. This can result in a fine of up to €4,000. Last year, we also completed a compliance intervention pilot to support landlords to rectify low-risk, minor breaches of rental law before escalating their cases for investigation and sanction.
On the Deputy's question about investigations, we focused a significant amount of our resources in 2024 - as the director said, we have eight investigators for the State - on investigations into high-risk offenders, which led to higher levels of sanction than previously seen. In total, we published 75 confirmed sanctions in 2024, with almost €250,000 in sanctions paid by landlords, a significant increase on the approximately €64,000 in monetary sanctions paid in 2023. Since 2019, landlords have paid €370,000 in sanctions. Our investigations have returned €467,000 in overpaid rent to tenants.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses. I apologise; I have to run to the Chamber. I will be back and I hope I will get another opportunity.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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If a landlord gives notice to tenants to quit - proper notice, all done within the law - and, unfortunately, the tenants may have nowhere to go or do not want to quit, what is the situation?
Mr. Owen Keegan:
That happens all too frequently. It ends up as a dispute, not because there is a fundamental dispute, but because the tenant genuinely has difficulty accessing alternative accommodation and overstays in the property, so it has to be resolved through our dispute mechanism. Unfortunately, that does happen.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Can the RTB not get involved with the tenants? I know homelessness is a tough situation but it is a pity to see a dispute going on between genuine landlords and genuine tenants and the tenants have nowhere to go. Could there not be some sort of a solution between the RTB, the local authority and the tenant? I have seen disputes with locks being changed or whatever. One does not want to see that happen. The RTB should have ways of solving the problem.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
We find, particularly with the AHB sector, that there are issues about rent arrears. I have spoken to the sector about it in terms of working closely with MABS early in disputes and using mediation rather than adjudication as a potential solution so that a pathway forward for the tenant can be found. We find that if the parties agree to mediation, there are helpful discussions and a resolution can be found. Sometimes, a workable solution for the tenant emerges. We have asked the AHB sector in particular to prioritise mediation rather than moving straight to adjudication, particularly where vulnerable tenants are involved. I have also discussed some of my concerns about the sector with the regulator for AHBs.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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There may be no rent arrears or issues and the landlord just wants his or her house back. That is where the bigger problem is.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
That is an issue around supply in the market. We have to try to support both parties to reach an agreement as fairly, quickly and reasonably as possible. Otherwise, it becomes too challenging for both. Since I started as director last September, I have prioritised overholding or rent withholding in dispute categories. We move them quickly into early intervention. We find that where we get those parties engaged early, it ends up in a situation that, while not desirable, is a more workable outcome for all parties. I would like Deputies to continue to highlight the mediation resources at the RTB to people coming to their offices. It is a free, valuable service. Where both parties agree to something, it can bring an end to some of these difficult situations quickly. Our mediation panel has shown its value in that regard. Everybody recognises the situation is difficult. I have huge sympathy for those impacted in such disputes.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Does the RTB reckon there will be a greater level of dispute over rent and rent arrears due to the impact of rising rents as well as the recent changes that are likely to cause rising rents and related complicated issues? Does the RTB gather data on what one might consider the affordability of rent or renters facing those challenges? If not, would the RTB consider doing so? It would be useful data.
On standards in rental properties, we know there is a massive problem. Does the RTB see itself undertaking any initiatives? Does it accept there is a big problem in standards? The RTB said there were breaches regarding company landlords. Will the witnesses identify what those breaches related to?
Mr. Owen Keegan:
It is important to emphasise that local authorities are the primary enforcement agency when it comes to compliance with rental standards. A situation would only come to our attention if there was a dispute or we got a complaint. Primary enforcement responsibility lies with local authorities.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Does the RTB think that enforcement is sufficient?
Mr. Owen Keegan:
I do not have a view on it. We do not have environmental health officers whose job it is to inspect. That is the situation at the moment. Some of those cases come through our system if there is a formal dispute or if there is an issue of general compliance. Ms Steen will deal with the other issues the Deputy raised.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
On disputes, I was very clear when I started as director that I wanted to prioritise that area within the regulatory body for action, and not just related to the changes that are now happening. The RTB has always had to deal with changes in regulatory regimes or legislation. We were talking about it this morning. The RTB is in its 20th year. We have had significant experience in adapting to different things. I was clear that disputes were a critical issue. That was why we drove investment in the new platform we launched last week, which was also to protect everybody in the context of further changes and disputes that would happen as a result of pressures around the market. I am happy we made that decision. We deprioritised investment in other parts of the business to do that. It was the right thing to do based on feedback from stakeholders. We had 26 stakeholders at clinics last week and yesterday giving feedback on the new system. The community is happy this is now in place and everybody will be able to access it in the context of whatever changes lie ahead.
It is clear that the challenges around the market are going to remain over the next year. We have to be in a position to service all of those disputes as quickly as possible.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Has the RTB done any analysis on rent and affordability? Does it see itself doing so?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
We have undertaken surveys. We published the results in 2021 and again in December 2023. These were nationally representative surveys of 1,200 tenants around the country. There are details about affordability in these surveys. We do not have it with people who are having to share.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Is it planned to do another one soon?
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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It would be very useful to have that data. Would the RTB consider incorporating it into the reports in some way to measure the impact on rent levels?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
This forms part of the submission we are making to the Department. We really want to invest more in our research. I very much welcome comments from members as to how useful they find our data. In the context of the changes facing the sector, it is critical that we continue to be at the forefront of providing that data in briefings such as this and to stakeholders. It is really important. That brings into sharp focus the registration system, the upgrade we need to make to collect more data, and how that should be managed. Part of the decision I made as director was to stand up the disputes systems, which is now operating on a different platform to make it more accessible and more focused on customer service. We have to discuss with Government whether we now want to do that with the registration system so that we can collect more data.
The Deputy also raised the issue of standards. That is part of the challenge. The report of the Housing Commission debated the data that would be required to stand up a rent register. We want to be able to collect that data as part of systematically supporting the sector to evolve.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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In these sessions, we often focus on perceived problems or challenges. It is much better to have a Residential Tenancies Board than to not have one. It is important that people hear that. In many other jurisdictions, there is still only one recourse for dispute resolution, that is, the courts, which are expensive and time-consuming. While we often focus on delays, some of the data the board has given us on the processing of disputes is very positive. I would welcome another round of both tenant and landlord sentiment surveys. They are really useful and provide some of the best data we get. I appreciate that these take time and resources. If the board is considering doing that, it would be good to invite our committee to say if there are things we believe it would be useful to know so that these questions could be thrown in. We still do not have an accurate picture of the flow of landlords and rental tenancies through the system. We know the number of registrations, both new and annual, and the number of notices of termination issued. However, we do not understand the net change, how many are coming in and how many are leaving. If we could get a handle on that, it would give us some really important information for framing policy. This may be a question for Mr. Gallwey or Ms Loughlin. From the data they have in front of them, do they have any observations on where the rental sector is? My own sense of the sector is that it is still contracting, although not at as sharp a rate as some people previously thought, and that the total number is lower than it was a number of years ago. Do the witnesses have observations or thoughts on where the sector is and what is the net flow between new landlords coming in and sitting landlords going out?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
On the net flow, I do not have a figure for the Deputy as to the numbers coming in and going out. We publish a point-in-time figure of the overall number of tenancies. With the advancements in our system and that future advancements we hope to have, we hope to get to a point at which we can monitor that in more detail. We know the number of NOTs we receive, which gives us some insight into the number of tenancies that are ending. It also gives us some insight into the number of landlords selling properties. In addition to private tenancies, we also see AHB tenancies. That sector is growing. It is great that we have a data set tracking that to see the consistent growth in that sector. I just wished to mention that.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have another question, which I know Deputy Hearne asked earlier. Is there any intention to do some follow-up work with the CSO on that gap? Obviously, the RTB and the CSO did some very good work but the situation has moved on since then. It would be useful to get a sense of whether that gap has narrowed or grown between the 2022 CSO data and the RTB's current registration data.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I presume the RTB has some level of granular detail that allowed it to initially identify the 47,000 properties, or whatever it was, and the two categories they were divided into. Is there any way to look back on those? I know there is a limit to the data the RTB can access from the CSO data sets but we should try to establish what happened with those 47,000. Did some end up registering? Did some not? Where did they go? Mr. Keegan is correct that after the next census is the right time to do the repeat exercise, but that is quite a way away.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It was not allowed identify them to the RTB but it must be able to do some analysis itself and then aggregate those findings in a way that is compliant with the GDPR.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
What we were able to identify from that data was the seven counties with the highest levels of non-compliance, which we spoke about earlier. We have been targeting those counties with the local authorities and we have undertaken communication campaigns through local media, including local radio, to drive compliance. We identified a number of tenancies in the ESRI individual property-level analysis that my colleague Mr. Gallwey spoke about earlier as well. We followed up with those. This included spot-checking 1,000 landlords. We are still following up on all of that activity. There will be more updates later in the year. The property-level analysis has helped to drive quite a lot of activity in the compliance space. We will probably keep pursuing that.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will ask a couple of questions myself. I have been listening in. I remember we had an issue at home ten years ago and got very poor service from the RTB. Things have changed. That was down to the resourcing of the organisation and a lot of improvement have made sense but I am picking up very strongly that the board is still under-resourced for what needs to be done in the future. What are the top three things the organisation needs to represent tenants and landlords properly? Some of this is outlined in the opening statement. A number of things have been mentioned. It was mentioned that 25,000 are unregistered. That represents a significant loss to the taxpayer because a significant percentage of these landlords would not be paying income tax. With all these new rules and changes, what does the RTB need in the next month to be fully resourced to effectively deliver what is needed?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
The national RPZ is a very significant compliance task. We currently have eight investigators to manage the whole country. We have raised issues regarding our desire to increase staffing in that area to drive investigations. Last month, we announced the largest fine ever levied against a landlord by the RTB. That was mentioned briefly by a Deputy in one of his queries. We need to be able to fine and sanction landlords appropriately. We also have to be able to give the data recorded on what is happening in the sector back to policymakers quickly. Resourcing for compliance and for research and analysis, which has been raised by Deputies, is very important. The chairperson has just told me the final piece is IT and I agree. When you look at where we are now compared with where we were a year ago, you can see that a great many positive things have happened. At this stage, the disputes system is state-of-the-art as regards public services. I hope it will perform a really valuable role under the new regime.
We need to make sure that we look at the registration system now and quickly. We want to make it user-friendly. We do not want some of the issues mentioned by committee members earlier. I need to drive Government investment into that system. I believe that we have successfully shown that we can manage an IT project within a budget. It has been delivered to budget. The team is very proud of the work that has been done to do that. We would like more investment because we believe that customers will benefit from that and that the market as a whole will become more confident in the services the RTB is providing. Those are the three things.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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What feedback has the RTB received?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
We have a very positive relationship with the Department. I see it regularly, as does Mr. Keegan. The Department understands and knows the RTB much better than I do. I have only been there for ten months. There is a good understanding that the RTB needs investment. I think that is accepted by all parties in involved.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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At 6.30 p.m., the select committee will deal with Estimates with the Minister for housing. I am sure that point will be highlighted.
Mr. Owen Keegan:
We have been speaking to the Minister about this. He certainly recognises the need. I am very conscious that we are in the Estimates process, and it may not be entirely in the Minister's gift at this stage, but we are very hopeful that we will get additional resources. We are hopeful that we will get resources on the scale we require.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I know we are caught for time. I will pick up on the issue of resources again. I asked about them at the outset. It is critically important that additional resources are provided. It is an issue that the RTB is properly resourced in terms of landlords staying in the rental market. It is equally important from a tenant's point of view that the RTB is properly resourced. The committee will certainly be trying to support that as best we can.
There are rogue people in every walk of life. There are rogue landlords and rogue tenants. What is the typical sanction that is given to rogue landlords? Is it a fine? To what extent does that happen? Equally, what are the typical sanctions, if any, on tenants found not to be complying with the rental agreement?
Ms Louise Loughlin:
There is a lot of detail in the quarterly publication we provided at the start of the meeting. It details some of the sanctions. We also publish it on our website. We have been working toward looking at the level of sanctions. As I said earlier, the overall volume of sanctions imposed increased significantly in 2024 compared with 2023. We have also been driving a lot of activity at rogue landlords. We published quite a bit on that recently. There was an interview with some of our colleagues in The Irish Times a couple of weeks ago on this very issue and the intricate detail required to pursue landlords who are deliberately evading regulation. They are often deliberately evading regulation by the RTB and by other regulators, including Revenue and others. A range of investigations are ongoing at present in that space, the details of which will be published when we can publish them.
I note that tenants themselves are not regulated in the same way as landlords in that respect. That would be done through the disputes process. If there are rent arrears, generally speaking, the determination order would be for the amount of rent arrears. This would cover other breaches of the tenants' obligations. The regulatory compliance role of the RTB relates to landlords.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the representatives of the RTB, Mr. Brian Gallwey, Ms Louise Loughlin, Ms Rosemary Steen and Mr. Owen Keegan for coming before the committee and answering a strong set of questions. We might invite the RTB back again at a later stage in the autumn or spring, hopefully following additional resourcing being put in place for the organisation.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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If we knew in advance when the quarterly reports were coming out, we might be able to schedule a meeting to coincide with that. This would mean the RTB would get a public airing of its report.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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That concludes our consideration on the matter today. I now propose that the committee adjourn until 6 p.m., when it will meet with the Minister, Deputy James Browne, to consider the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2025. Is that agreed? Agreed.