Representatives of students, young people and the less well off have welcomed the improved tenant security recommended in the report of a Government commission on the rented sector, but say it is not enough.
The Report of the Commission on the Private Rented Residential Sector published yesterday recommends that tenants be given a right to renew their leases for up to four years once they have rented an apartment or house for six months. The commission proposes the establishment of a Private Residential Tenancies Board to deal with disputes between tenants and landlords.
The Government has yet to say which of the recommendations it will implement in legislation to be introduced later this year. Publishing the report yesterday, the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal, Mr Bobby Molloy, said he and other Government colleagues would be "closely and urgently studying its findings and recommendations". He said he intended to bring "firm proposals to Government, together with a programme for implementation, in September".
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Finance yesterday repeated the position that there were no plans at present to review the 9 per cent stamp duty imposed on purchases of investment properties, despite the recommendation that it be reviewed. The new rate had just been implemented and time would have to be allowed to see how it operated, she said.
There was mixed reaction yesterday from those representing tenants and property owners. Both the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) said the report did not address the problem of rapidly rising rents.
"USI believes that some form of rent regulation is needed in the private rented sector," the organisation's president, Mr Julian de Spainn, said. The NYCI president, Mr James Doorley, said the security of tenure recommended in the report was too limited and the issue of spiralling rents had been inadequately addressed. "Given that the option of home ownership is now beyond more and more young people, there must be greater security for them in the private rented sector and this report simply does not go far enough."
The Society of St Vincent de Paul said it was giving the report a "guarded welcome". The society, represented on the commission, said it was unhappy with "the limited measures proposed to deal with security of tenure and notice periods".