Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

307. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the reason only a portion of Limerick city has been designated a rent pressure zone; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that persons renting across Limerick city are struggling with escalating rental costs; if this decision will be reviewed and all of Limerick city included as a rent pressure zone; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18124/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

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 (€1,134 per month in Q4 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 this and  by searching 'rent pressure zones - information'.

The most recent average national rent available for this purpose is taken from the Q4 2018 RTB Rent Index Report which records an average national rent of €1,134. 

Five of the six Local Electoral Areas (LEA’s) in Limerick do not currently fulfil the RPZ designation criteria under the legislation as the average rent in each is below the National Standardised Rent of €1,134.  The sixth LEA, Limerick City East, did fulfil the criteria on the basis of the Q4 2018 Rent index Report and, accordingly, on 27 March 2019, I  announced the designation of Limerick City East as a Rent Pressure Zone with effect from 28 March 2019.

The data from the Q4 2018 Rent Index Report relating to the six Limerick LEAs is set out in the following table.

Notes:* indicates that rents in areas with less than 30 observations are not published for statistical reasons.

The Housing Agency continues to monitor the market with a view to making recommendations for further areas to be considered for designation as rent pressure zones, as required. Following the recent designation of Limerick City East and Navan as rent pressure zones; over 55% of tenancies nationally are now located in 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.  Key measures in relation to rent increases passed through Committee Stage on 11 April, including the extension of the designation of existing RPZs to the end of 2021.

For fairness across the country, revisions are proposed in respect of the average rent qualifying criterion for RPZ designation.  Following enactment of the Bill, using RTB data, (i) the rent of a dwelling in the Greater Dublin Area (Kildare, Wicklow and Meath) will  be compared to the average rent across the country, excluding Dublin rents; and (ii) the rent of a dwelling outside of the Greater Dublin Area will be compared to the average rent across the country, excluding the Greater Dublin Area rents.