Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) Rent Index is designed to measure developments in rental prices faced by those taking up new tenancies in the private rental sector and from Q2 2023 utilising Annual Registration data, existing tenancy rent price developments.

The addition of the Existing Tenancies Index beginning in the Q2 2023 index, significantly strengthens the ability to understand the Private Rental Sector overall, which has gone through considerable change in recent years. The Rent Index can now tell us about market rents for new tenancies and the rents of sitting tenants. It also allows us gauge for first time how rents are changing for the majority of tenants, i.e. sitting tenants.

The Rent Index report is the most accurate and authoritative rent report of its kind on the private rental sector in Ireland. Compared to other market monitoring reports produced for the Irish rental sector, the RTB/ESRI Rent Index has the considerable benefit of being based on regulatory data covering all new tenancy registrations regardless of how the property was advertised for rent.

Section 151(2A) of the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004–2022 (RTA) provides that I, as the Minister, shall, not earlier than 12 months and not later than 15 months after the commencement of section 22 of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019, request the RTB to provide me with such information in relation to prevailing rent levels in the private rented sector (i.e. excluding lettings by Approved Housing Bodies but including lettings of Student Specific Accommodation) within 3 months of the request (i.e. on or before 2 October 2023). The report was laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas on 22 December 2023 and may be found here:

opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library3/Documents%20Laid/2023/pdf/HLGHdoclaid221223_113808.pdf

Rent transparency, in compliance with existing legislation, is key for the sector. My Department understands that that there is a very serious risk, if not a likelihood, that the publication of the rent of an identifiable tenancy would contravene Article 6(3) of the GDPR on the grounds that it is disproportionate to the legitimate aim of rent transparency pursued. Section 128(4) of the RTA provides that the RTB's published register of tenancies shall not contain any information, as respects a particular dwelling, that discloses or could reasonably lead to the disclosure of—

(a) the identity of the landlord or the tenant or tenants of the dwelling,

(b) the amount of the rent payable under a tenancy of the dwelling.

I currently have no plans to amend section 128(4). Any change in this regard would need to comply with existing data protection and privacy laws and require consultation with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.