The number of people renting their homes in Ireland has now reached European norms with one third of households in a formal or informal rental arrangement.
The ongoing shortage of housing means this situation is unlikely to change soon and brings the role of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) into focus. Set up in 2004, the board regulates the private rental sector as well as the landlord role of approved housing bodies and student accommodation.
Originally established to help tenants exercise their legal rights, it has now become the primary enforcer of rent controls which were extended nationwide in June and limit annual rent increases to the lower of 2 percent or the rate of inflation.
In the first six months of the year the RTB approved 249 investigations into breaches of rental laws, more than double the number carried out in 2024. A significant proportion of these related to non-compliance by landlords with Rent Pressure Zone rules – mostly rent increases that were above the allowed threshold. The extent of this practice was unearthed by analysis by the Economic and Social Research Institute.
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It also issued 3,357 compliance notices in the first six months of the year to landlords who failed to register with the board. Just over a third complied and enforcement action has been taken against the remainder. The failure of landlords to register tenancies is arguably the biggest impediment to the RTB’s ability to carry out its role. The 2022 census found a gap of 70,000 between the number of tenancies recorded by census takers and the numbers on the RTB’s books.
Rosemary Steen, the director of the RTB, said last week that the board was hopeful that it will be given “new tools to allow us to enforce rent pressure zone rules at a greater scale and pace.” The director has to be diplomatic in her choice of words but the number of people living in rental accommodation means any failure to give the RTB the resources needed to protect tenants from unscrupulous landlords will come back to back to bite this Government and its successors.
