Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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42. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the actions he will take to reduce rents to affordable levels in view of the fact that rent increases in most of the country in 2018 were multiples of the rent pressure zone limits. [8479/19]

Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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44. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the actions he is taking to alleviate the escalating rents in the private rental sector in counties Laois and Offaly. [8290/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 42 and 44 together.

Affordability remains a significant issue in the rental market. Continued economic and population growth coupled with inward migration and a constrained supply of housing contribute to upward pressures on rents.

The Strategy for the Rental Sector, published in December 2016, introduced the Rent Predictability Measure to moderate rent increases in those parts of the country where rents are highest and rising resulting in great difficulty for households finding affordable accommodation. In Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), rents can only increase by a maximum of 4% annually. The measure applies to new and existing tenancies, when rents are set at the start of a tenancy and when rents are set in a rent review during an ongoing tenancy or new tenancy, unless otherwise exempted.

Section 24A of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, as amended, provides that the Housing Agency, in consultation with housing authorities, may make a proposal to the Minister that an area should be considered for designation as a Rent Pressure Zone. Following receipt of such a proposal, the Minister requests the Director of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) to conduct an assessment of the area to establish whether or not it meets the criteria for designation and to report to the Minister on whether the area should be designated as a Rent Pressure Zone. For the purpose of the Act, ‘area’ is defined as either the administrative area of a housing authority or a local electoral area within the meaning of section 2 of the Local Government Act 2001.

For an area to be designated a Rent Pressure Zone, it must satisfy the following criteria set out in section 24A(4) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 (as inserted by section 36 of the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016):

(i) the annual rate of rent inflation in the area must have been 7% or more in four of the last six quarters; and

(ii) the average rent for tenancies registered in the area with the RTB in the last quarter must be above the average national rent (the National Standardised Rent in the RTB’s Rent Index Report) in the last quarter (€1,122 per month in Q3 2018).

The RTB Rent Index Report includes a summary in Table 9 of the data used to establish whether each Local Electoral Area fulfils the criteria for designation as a Rent Pressure Zone. This ensures transparency in relation to the position of individual areas in terms of average rent levels and increases.

Further information on Rent Pressure Zones and designations is available on my Department's website at , by searching 'rent pressure zones - information'.

The most recent average national rent available for this purpose is taken from the Q3 2018 RTB Rent Index Report which records an average national rent of €1,122. Data for Q3 2018 show that nationally, private rents rose by 7.5% annually across the country, a slight deceleration from 7.8% in Q2 2018. National rents showed a quarterly increase of 1.9%, a decrease from 3.4% in Q2 2018.

The six Local Electoral Areas (LEA’s) in Laois and Offaly do not currently fulfil the RPZ designation criteria under the legislation as the average rent in each is below the National Standardised Rent of €1,122. The data from the Q3 2018 Rent Index Report relating to the six LEA’s located is set out in the following table.

The Housing Agency continues to monitor the rental market and may recommend further areas for designation. Where, following the procedures set out in the Act, it is found at a future date that additional areas meet the criteria, they will be designated as Rent Pressure Zones.

The Residential Tenancies (Amendment)(No. 2) Bill 2018 was published on 19 December 2018 to deliver on a number of commitments flowing from Rebuilding Ireland and commitments made subsequently to provide powers to the RTB to investigate and sanction landlords who engage in improper conduct, including non-compliance with the rent increase restriction in Rent Pressure Zones.