Minister for Housing defends new Govt rental measures

The Minister for Housing has defended new measures in relation to the rental market, saying they strike a balance between protecting tenants and supporting investment.

Speaking in Galway this morning, James Browne acknowledged “there were a few different moving parts” in the planned legislation, but he said these were necessary, given the scale of the accommodation issues the country was facing.

“There’s always going to be a challenge around the complexity of doing anything like this, there’s no one size fits all to bring a solution to this kind of complex situation,” he said.

He said a balance had to be struck between protecting tenants and ensuring that investors were willing to embark on building projects.

The Minister said the Government wanted to protect existing tenants as well as increasing the supply of available rental properties. He said “a massive step change” was needed in this regard but that he believed the measures announced this week would help that to happen.

He said investors needed certainty as to what the long term situation would be regarding tenants rights.

Minister Browne said the current situation with Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), where rent increases are limited to two per cent, meant investors could make a loss, if inflation rose above that figure.

He said this was causing a “blockage” but that more needed to be done to address what he termed “a viability gap” for new builds.

He said the Government would be taking other measures to close this gap in the coming weeks and months.

The Minister added that a minimum security of tenure, of six years from next March, would protect renters entering into a new lease agreement, while allowing landlords to be able to reset rents “every so often”. He said he felt the six year period struck the right balance in that regard.

But he said landlords couldn’t take advantage of this to reset rents “to a mad number” and would have to charge market rates or lower. The Residential Tenancies Board would adjudicate on any disputes that arose in this regard, and would be provided with additional resources to do this.

Minister Browne made his comments after opening a new office for the Threshold housing charity in Galway, where the twin issues of housing affordability and supply are having a huge impact on the lives of thousands of people.

He said he had secured cabinet approval to tackle the impact caused by short-term holiday lets on the wider rental market.

“We’re in a housing crisis, where there is an issue with supply, we have to take priority decisions, and the priority has to be for people to have homes over short term lets” he said.

The Government has already proposed passing legislation to outlaw short term lets, in the absence of planning permission, in towns with a population of 10,000 or more.

The Minister acknowledged that this would have some impact on those dependent on such income but said the wider need for housing had to be given precedence.

He said there had been a lack of enforcement of existing legislation around short term lets, but said “it should come to an end now”.

Mr Browne said planned legislation would give “really strong enforcement powers to ban the advertisement of short term lets”.

He said he would also be open to giving more powers to local authorities in terms of enforcement.

The Minister has a series of engagements in the area today, including a meeting with campaigners in Conamara, who say the number of planning approvals for new homes in Gaeltacht areas is impacting the chance Irish speakers have to live in their own communities.

He is also due to open the first cost rental housing scheme in Galway city this afternoon.