Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I restate that the rent pressure zones, RPZs, are new. It is important with any new policy that we keep it under review. We try to keep it under review almost constantly. I have had a number of engagements with the CEO of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, to keep talking about what exactly is happening in the RPZs. If we look at the change from quarter 2 of last year to quarter 3, we saw some surprising things in terms of the rate of inflation in Dublin, which is under RPZs. We also saw an increase of about 5,000 or 6,000 new tenancies on the RPZ registration database. It is not yet clear if that is new stock coming onto the market or existing stock that had been registered under a different person's name and that was sold to another landlord or for which a different person in the relationship registered the tenancy for that year. Part of the change management programme that we have under way with the RTB is to give it annual registrations of tenancies so that it can have much better data as to the number of landlords that are in the market so that we can see the number of new landlords coming in and the impact that might have on the RPZs.

The RPZs have been reviewed. That work is now being finalised with the RTB and when I have it I will be able to bring it to the relevant Oireachtas committee or here to the Dáil. We can then discuss the implications of the review. It is a very new policy. Almost every quarter, new areas have come under RPZs because they have met the two sets of qualifying criteria. In the last quarter, they did not, which I thought was interesting. That tells us a story in and of itself.

I understand the complaints some Deputies are making about the effect an RPZ is having on an area adjacent to it that is not classified as an RPZ. We are looking at that as well.

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