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

There are two pieces of legislation to strengthen the Residential Tenancies Board. Both are priority legislation and I hope to bring them to Cabinet in the coming weeks to publish as quickly as possible. The daft.iereport tells us what we already know: that rents are rising. However, it is not as complete as the data we get from the Residential Tenancies Board, which is a much larger dataset. Also, the daft.iereport gives the asking price and not the actual rents registered.

The third quarter report from the RTB indicates that the rents registered are lower. Between the second quarter and the third quarter the RTB residential rent index shows an increase in the number of tenancies registered. The point being made yesterday is that it is not clear from the data if the increase in the average rent prices being asked is as a result of new tenancies being created or if it is as a result of other factors in the market. We are working on that with the RTB. The priority legislation will give the board the tools to be able to drill down into the data more quickly.

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