While standards of rental accommodation has improved, there are still fleapits being rented out and the people who invariably end up living in them are society’s vulnerable . Threshold has called on the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment to protect tenants at the lower end of the rental sector.

The planned transfer of the administration of rent supplement from the Department of Social Protection to the Department of the Environment is an opportunity to address problems at the lower end of the private rented setor, it says. It suggests that rent be paid directly to landlords as a means of safeguarding the interests of tenants, allowing the state to regulate the amount of rent paid and a self certification scheme, which puts the onus on landlords to prove that their accommodation is fit for purpose before renting.