Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of the rent-pressure zones was to protect people in existing tenancies from big increases in their rent that may cause them to lose their homes. The majority of people who now rent in Ireland are covered by the rent-pressure zones and are seeing rent increases of 4% or less. There are, of course, exceptions to that, for example, in the case of substantial refurbishment and other things. The difficulty that arises is that for new tenancies and new properties, rents are continuing to rise at double-digit rates.

Therefore, what is the solution? The solution is to ensure there is more supply in the rented sector. Today's report from daft.ieshows that only about 3,000 new properties are available for rent. The solution, therefore, must lie in ensuring we have an increase in supply, which is what we are doing. The Deputy can see the amount of student accommodation that has been built around the country in recent years and there is more to come. He can see the ramp-up in the building of social housing by government with 7,000 houses and homes added to the social housing stock last year, trebling the number of direct builds by local authorities. He can see an increase in private sector builds with approximately 17,000 new homes built last year. In addition, we are strengthening the powers of the Residential Tenancy Board to turn it into a proper regulator with more enforcement powers so that people are not expected to enforce these rules for themselves.

We need to be careful with any additional measures. I have heard what Dr. Lyons has had to say and what people from the Irish Property Owners Association and others have had to say. There is a risk that introducing rent controls that are too strict or too rigid could be counterproductive and could actually create even more of a black market in rent. We have seen that happening in places with very strict rent controls where people end up paying cash amounts under the table or subletting to others. We need to ensure we do not make those kinds of mistakes. We also need to ensure we do not do anything that discourages people from staying in, or coming into, the private rented sector. Landlords get a very bad press. While some of them deserve it, they do not all deserve it. We need to ensure we reverse the decline in the number of people who are renting out properties and measures can be taken in that regard.

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