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

I assure the Deputy that I have no rabbits to pull out of the hat and I have no quick fixes. This is not a problem that will be solved by an announcement, by some sort of quick-fix measure or by changing one law or one piece of legislation. That is just not the case. To every complex problem there is an easy and simple solution that probably does not work. A rent freeze is probably one of those. We have rent pressure zones. They have brought some control around the extent to which rents are increasing. They cap rent increases at 4% and we know from the last two ESRI reports that rents increased by approximately 1% per quarter in those areas, so there is at least some initial evidence that they have helped to moderate the rate of increases.

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