Coveney defends ‘independent selection’ in rental caps

Greystones, Co Wicklow; Maynooth, Co Kildare; and Cobh, Co Cork were not included among areas zoned for rent restrictions, because they did not meet strict criteria, Minister for Housing Simon Coveney has said.

Twelve areas were selected for designation as “rent pressure zones “ in January, joining Dublin and Cork city as places where increases in residential rents were capped at 4 per cent.

According to criteria set down by the Residential Tenancies Board, local electoral areas can be designated rent pressure zones if they have a higher average rental price than the national average and have seen increases above 7 per cent over four of the last six quarters.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, however, Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd said the criteria were flawed as they did not refer to housing assistance payments.

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Mr O’Dowd said Drogheda, Dundalk and Ardee in Co Louth were areas where the highest levels of housing assistance payments were made, but he said the money was just “going to landlords” because the areas were not designated as rent pressure zones which would have limited rent increases to 4 per cent.

Wicklow Fianna Fáil TD Pat Casey said Greystones was an “anomaly” in that the lowest rent for a two-bedroom home in the town on Tuesday was €1,500 and it was left out of the designation for rent control.

He said he understood Blessington in west Wicklow did not meet the criteria for average rents because the local electoral area of Blessington stretched into very rural areas.

But he said Maynooth and Greystones were among commuter towns which were anomalies in that they were subject to intense rental pressure but had not met the criteria for designation as rent pressure zones.

Mr O’Dowd said the “formula was not applied equally” as he believed Cobh was another anomaly – but one which was to be included in pressure-zone status.

Criteria

Responding to the questions when he attended a regional planning meeting in Ballymun in Dublin later in the day, Mr Coveney said Greystones, Maynooth or Cobh would not be included until they met the criteria for rent control.

Asked if the three were anomalies, Mr Coveney said: “No.” He said none had been included in the list of designated towns because they had not met the criteria.

“It might be a possibility in the future but they don’t qualify today.”

He added: “I can understand why people would want those areas included but we have to designate rent pressure zones on the basis of independently assessed data by the Residential Tenancies Board working with the ESRI, which is what they have been doing.

“There are essentially two qualifying criteria: rent has to be increasing by at least 7 per cent a year for four of the last six quarters; and it has to be higher than the national average. Those areas , for one or another reason, didn’t qualify. I cannot intervene in the rental market in the way that rent pressure zones do unless the data justifies that. I won’t do things to be politically popular in local areas.”

Mr Coveney added: “That shouldn’t be a political decision, that should be made on independent data”.

The 12 rent pressure zones are listed here: rtb.ie/rent-pressure-zones/rent-pressure-zones.