THE PRICE OF rents nationwide is now 41% higher than they were at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In their Rental Price Report for the second quarter of 2024 (Q2 2024), Daft.ie found that the average monthly rent nationwide was €1,922, and has been increasing by 7.3% per year.

The surveyed region with the greatest increase on pre-Covid levels was Connacht/Ulster, which has seen an average jump of 76%. Co Leitrim saw the greatest individual increase, at 90%.

By comparison, Munster saw an average increase of 59%, Leinster (excluding Dublin) had 55%, while the capital had the lowest at 24%.

Rents rose by an average of 2% in Q2 compared with Q1 of this year, the fourteenth consecutive quarterly increase, and the 45th in the last four years.

Rent inflation remains significantly lower in Dublin than in the rest of the country, with the capital seeing an increase of 3.5% compared with Q2 2023. The national average for the same time period was 10.6%.

Outside of Dublin, the increases were much sharper.

Limerick City saw an increase over twice the national average, up 21% year-on-year, with an average rent of €2,107 per month. This was increase of 70% compared to pre-Covid rates.

Ireland’s other cities also saw double digit increases.

Galway went up by 13% (€2,114 per month), Cork rose by 12% (€2,005 per month), and Waterford saw a 10% jump (€1,616 per month).

Housing availability has remained tight across the country, with a national trend down in housing stock.

Munster has seen the largest decrease, with stock down 17% between 1 August 2023 and the same time this year.

The report’s author, Ronan Lyons, an economist at Trinity College Dublin, said that the key exacerbating factor was supply.

“Ideally, more than a decade into a rental housing shortage, we would be talking about the gradual spread of the solution, rather than a return to the core problem.

“The solution is a nesupply of market rental homes,” he said.

“However, the policy environment has only actively promoted the construction of new market rental housing for roughly four years out of the last 12.

“It is most unfortunate that pro-rental policies were scrapped just as the evidence was starting to emerge of their success. Reintroducing pro-rental policies is, however, not a discretionary policy option.

“It is an imperative choice if Ireland is to have some semblance of a healthy housing system by the end of the decade,” he said.

Opposition response

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty called the report a damning indictment of the government’s housing policy.

“Week after week, month after month we are presented with report after report highlighting the government’s failures in housing.

“People are growing weary of these reports. Parents don’t need another report to tell them that their adult children living in their box rooms cannot afford a home.

“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have shown that they are incapable and unwilling of fixing the housing crisis that they themselves created,” he said.

Social Democrat Housing Spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan said that the report was proof “that the maximum 2 per cent rent increases allowed for in Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) are not being enforced, which is putting renters under huge pressure”.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik echoed Doherty and O’Callaghan, saying, “We’re coming up to the three year anniversary of Housing for All”.

“The crisis we find ourselves demands a step change in policy approach with a renewed focus on vastly increasing supply of housing and on creating more protections for those renting their homes.

“As rents continue to rise and more people are pushed into precarious living situations, the need for decisive action has never been clearer,” she said.