An association for Irish landlords has reacted with fury after Housing Minister Daragh O’Brien said the Government has considered extending rent pressure zones nationwide. 

If implemented, it would mean rent rises would in theory be capped at 2% a year and Margaret McCormack of the Irish Property Owners Association said such a measure would damage the housing market: 

“It’s going to be a disaster, it would be an absolute disaster,” Ms McCormack protested. 

“It [rent pressure zones] already is massively damaging as it stands. The system has penalised landlords that kept the rent low. 

“There’s no mechanism to bring rents to a sustainable level. So we are losing people, people are actually leaving the market, they’re serving notice on their tenants, who are on low rents - which benefited them - they have got to find alternative accommodation. 

“There’s absolutely no incentive [to do] any upgrades or modernisations of the accommodation and there’s also no income. Because if the income is insufficient to maintain property, we’re into a situation where the properties themselves become tired.” 

An aerial view of Dublin houses near Croke Park . Photo: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

Last year Dublin was found to be the most expensive city to rent in the eurozone and last week figures from the Residential Tenancies Board revealed that rents had increased by 8.3% nationally since 2020. 

However, Ms McCormack said the plight of tenants worried about the cost of rent was not something a landlord should concern themselves with: 

“It is not a landlord’s responsibility to reduce rent to make it affordable for a tenant. It is the Government’s obligation to assist people who are on low incomes if they need more for their accommodation needs. 

“And remember that the self same Government takes at least 50% of the rent in taxation. Fact.”

Nearly as bad as bombing

She continued: 

“The Swedish economist, Assar Linbeck, he said basically that, ‘Rent controls appear to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city except for bombing.’

"And we’ve gone there.” 

Currently, 76% of Irish homes are located inside rent pressure zones. However, Housing Minister Daragh O’Brien said rent rises outside the RPZs are unsustainable: 

“We are looking at those 24% outside the Rent Pressure Zones and that has to be looked at because I think outside those RPZs, quarter on quarter, we are looking at about a 10% increase and that is something I am looking at, at the moment,” Mr O’Brien told Newstalk Breakfast. 

Minister O’Brien also blamed the current crisis on a lack of supply:

“Rent is climbing and rent is too high and we have seen double digit increases outside the Rent Pressure Zones so that is something I am looking at right now,” he said.

“It is about supply and we have got to get supply up because we have seen the private rental market shrinking as well and that is a real issue.

“That is affecting rents and there are more people competing for single properties and that is a problem so, am I looking at other measures? Yes, I am.”

Some 25,000 new homes are due to be built in 2022 – up from just over 20,000 this year.

Main image: A man walks past an estate agent's window. Picture by: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie.