Kenneth Fox
Sinn Féin is calling for a three-year rent freeze to stop rising costs for tenants.
As the Irish Examiner reports, housing spokesperson Éoin Ó Broin has said no one measure will tackle the crisis in the rental market and while the three-year rent freeze is necessary he said the Government must also put major investment into affordable cost rental housing.
Mr Ó Broin said he "simply doesn't accept" the argument that a ban on increasing rents would drive many landlords out of the market.
However, he acknowledged that 20,000 rental tenants have exited the market as their properties have been sold to first and second-time buyers.
But Mr Ó Broin said: “The primary reason why those people have sold off is because the properties have returned to positive net equity and they want to get out.
"They are people who probably should never have been landlords, they thought it was a passive investment that didn't require much time.
And of course they suddenly realised that being a landlord is essentially a full-time job, it requires a lot of effort and that's a real problem
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Ó Broin called on Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien to sit down with the sector and with the opposition to come up with a plan to stop what he called the "disorderly exit" of landlords.
“The idea that a ban on increasing rent when rents are today higher than they have ever been will result in a loss of supply I simply don't accept.”
He said so-called "interferences in the markets" mean landlords now again get 100 per cent mortgage interest relief which was increased from 75 per cent over the last number of years and they are also able to write off very significant portions of their costs.
