Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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558. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if Athy, County Kildare, will be included as a rent pressure zone; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38851/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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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.

Previously, for an area to be designated a Rent Pressure Zone, it must have satisfied the 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), as follows:

(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 (i.e the National Standardised Rent in the RTB’s Rent Index Report) in the last quarter (€1,169.12 per month in Q1 2019).

However, on 30 May 2019, I signed the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 (Commencement) Order 2019 which appointed 31 May 2019 and 4 June 2019 as the dates on which specified provisions of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 came into effect, including provisions in respect of the average rent qualifying criterion for RPZ designation. Specifically, in relation to criteria (ii) above, the rent of a dwelling in the Greater Dublin Area (Kildare, Wicklow and Meath) will now be compared to the average rent across the country, excluding Dublin rents; and the rent of a dwelling outside of the Greater Dublin Area will be compared to the average rent across the country, excluding Greater Dublin Area rents.

Each quarterly 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. The quarterly Rent Index Reports are available to view on the RTB's website at the following link: .

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

While rental inflation in the Athy LEA has been above 7% in 4 of the last 6 quarters, the standardised average rent in Athy in Q1 2019 was €801.55, which is below the Non-Dublin Standardised Average Rent of €879.25 per month, thereby not satisfying the criteria for designation as an RPZ.

Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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559. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if Monasterevin, County Kildare, will be included as a rent pressure zone; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38852/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Kildare- Newbridge Local Electoral Area (LEA) was designated a Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) on 27 January 2017 under section 24 of the Residential Tenancies Acts (2004-2019). Subsequently, the Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee No 1 Report in 2018 recommended that Monasterevin be moved from the Athy LEA (which is not a designated Rent Pressure Zone) to a newly created Kildare LEA. New LEAs and Municipal Districts for County Kildare, which gave effect to this recommendation, were signed into law on 19 December 2018 through the County of Kildare Local Electoral Areas and Municipal Districts Order 2018.

However, Section 24A(6) or the Residential Tenancies Acts provides that ‘Where a local electoral area is prescribed by order as an RPZ and, subsequently, any local electoral areas are duly amended in a manner that affects the area of the local electoral area so prescribed, then the order shall continue to have effect as if the local electoral area concerned had not been so amended.’

Therefore, under Section 24A(6), areas already designated as RPZs will remain designated and areas that are not designated will retain their current undesignated status and as such will not become a RPZ by virtue of the change to the boundary. Monasterevin, which was previously in an undesignated LEA, therefore remained undesignated.

Under the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 the expiry date of all deemed and designated RPZs is extended to 31 December 2021.