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RENT PRESSURE ZONE rules have been extended for a further year until 31 December 2025.
Government decided to extend the operation of rent pressure zones at Cabinet today.
A Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) is a designated area where rent increases are capped.
Rents in a RPZ cannot be increased by more than 2% per annum and the rules apply to both new and existing tenancies in RPZs .
Today’s decision comes shortly after the latest Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) report found that the national average rents for new tenancies are €1,598 per month, up 11% on the previous year, while existing tenancies rose 5.2% to a national average of €1,357.
There was a higher percentage increase in new tenancies outside Dublin, where monthly rent costs rose nearly 13% compared with 10% in the capital.
Earlier today, opposition members rounded on the Taoiseach on the issue of housing, with Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald highlighting the issue of the government involvement in long-term leasing deals.
Calling it a “fiasco”, she said the policy of providing social housing by leasing properties from the private sector was “wasteful and costly”.
Over the weekend, The Business Post reported that the State has taken out almost 9,000 such long-term leasing deals at a cost of more than €3.24 billion over the 25 years the deals are due to run.
McDonald says billions is being sent on these deals and at the end of it, the state won't own these properties.
— Christina Finn (@christinafinn8) May 14, 2024
Taoiseach responds by saying today it was decided to extend rent pressure zones for another year.
He says long-term leasing is being tappered down and phased out. pic.twitter.com/qAKTOu3JSt
The Taoiseach took issue with the figures, stating that it was being assumed that all leases entered into would run 25 years.
Simon Harris said the State’s long-term leasing to provide social housing would end by December 2025, as promised by Government in 2021.
McDonald said long term social housing leases are subject to “upward-only” rent reviews every three years and are not limited by the 2% cap under Rent Pressure Zones.
“A very, very sweet deal for the property funds,” McDonald told the Dáil.
“This is a scandalous, short-sighted, negligent waste of taxpayers’ money by Government. Instead of investing to boost State-owned social housing stock, you’re paying out huge sums of taxpayers’ money to ‘big shot’ property funds for homes the state won’t own – the incompetence here is off the charts.
“Far from phasing out this wasteful policy, you’ve turbocharged it with bumper profits for property funds. And this puts up in lights that Fine Gael is never ever going to solve the whole housing crisis The simple truth is you’re not capable of it.”
In response, Harris said the measure was being tapered down and phased out by the government, but added that when it comes to housing the government has a “pragmatic view”, stating that is a good thing to do in an emergency.
“All these deals come with upward only rent reviews,’ she says, stating every single aspect of the deal is bad for the state,” said Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns today.
“Quite literally, if you wanted to design a worse way to provide social housing you couldn’t,” she added, stating that “investment funds are loving it”.
“The sweetheart deals are cash cows for them. There’s literally no downside. They lock in sky high rents, include upward only rent reviews, and ensure they retain ownership of the asset at the end.”
Harris again defended the Government’s record on housing, stating: “Never in your lifetime or my lifetime were more social homes provided than were provided last year.
“Because housing policy can’t just be about ideology and emergency, it has to be about using every single provision.
“When it comes to housing, we take a pragmatic view, unlike some of you who rule this out and rule that out, we will use every tool at our disposal to maximize the availability of housing supply for our citizens.”
With reporting by Press Association
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Heartbreaking. Is that the best that the USA can do, with its huge resources. So many live in abject poverty.
They’d sooner spend their billions on other children from far flung areas of the globe turning them into orphans and refugees. If they don’t care about their own children own whey would they care about anyone elses.
Kid needs to check his privilege.
Congrats to the boy
Poor little boy hasn’t had a great start in life, so many more out there like him, contrast this and the story about little Prince George and it’s just such a shame how one little boy has it all while another little boy has nothing!, hardly seems fair, hope his future is brighter!
Good luck to them all. Tis hard to be a child growing up without a proper home. Hopefully they can make it through.
And people give out about having to stay in hotels
Wow. Poor little guy. And sometimes we have a cheek to complain about silly things
Land of the Brave, Home of the Free. If you can cut it in the rat-race, never get ill, never get tired, never make a mistake. Given this country’s adoration of all things American, look out for a similar story in a venue near you – sooner rather than later.
Has already happened, SDCC evicted a 17 year old girl from her family home on Wednesday morning after the passing of her mother last year. They wouldn’t even let the poor child back in to get her mothers ashes and left her curled up in a ball, in her pyjamas, on the doorstep heartbroken. They told her she wasn’t their concern….. an orphaned 17 year old should be everyones concern.
Ann…i didnt hear about this..tell us more?
Please share more information on this story. Those responsible need to be called to account for their despicable behaviour. We can’t do that with sufficient information.
Scroll down their page – the media is too busying with other stuff!
https://www.facebook.com/Cairdeas-Homeless-Action-Group-768034629939704/?fref=photo
The girl wasn’t actually living in the house ..
You seem to know more than I do Suzie – do you know what the story behind it is? I searched the other night when I came across the post but could find nothing more about it. But the fact remains regardless of whether or not she was living there, her mothers ashes need to be returned to her.
Ann , the young girl is living wuth her grandmother and they were corresponding with her at all times , she knew it was happening so I would say she had her belongings in her grandmother’s house .
When this young ladies mother was alive she used to spend a couple of nights a week in her grannies and the rest of the time at home with her mother. When her mother got sick she stayed with her all of the time. Before her mother passed her gran was diagnosed with a terminal illness and when her mam died she stayed with her granny to look after her while she was sick (and lets not forget this young girl has school and doing her leaving cert). Her grandmother is now dying and in the hospice. In February the council wrote to her and told her that because she was a minor they could not leave her in the house and that as it was a 3 bedroom house it was needed for a family. So it will probably be back to square one when her granny passes.
Free to live in abject poverty. God bless America. It bloody-well needs it.
Contemporary sociologists have a nice cuddly descriptive term for this type of non traditional family unit – “a blended family”. Its essential…mandatory even,to be non judgemental about such social constructs so i will say only…well done.
You know the sad thing about this.
In a decades time some angry feminist or rights group activist will accuse him of having had a privilieged white male existence.
And social media will believe them.
Ireland 5 to 10 years on ?
Land of the free, home of the brave. Shocking how those in most need are let down by society.
For the love of God tell me if I can donate to this family. I don’t have much but I will send what I have. I can’t comprehend what these people have been through. Is this America?
Yeah.
Obama’s America.
Democrat’s America.
thejournal.ie you are way to PC with what people want to say, shame on you.
Ah god she left the buying of his birthday cake til the middle of his birthday party. …..that’s a bit odd
If only the Patriarchy would come to this guy’s rescue
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