The Environment Minister says figures showing a hike in rents from July to September were predicted by his department.
Figures from DAFT.ie showed that they went up by 3 percent pver that period - the biggest increase since 2007.
It comes ahead of new Government proposals to freeze rents for two years.
Alan Kelly says the DAFT figures didn’t come as a surprise to him:
“The facts are that supply is the real issue here and we don’t have enough supply. It’s as simple as that. And we need to increase supply, that’s why we took out the numerous measures last week that I announced. We need to increase supply dramatically”.
Father Peter McVerry says we need a state of emergency now, to get the homeless and housing crisis under control:
“The Minister for the Environment wanted much stronger rent certainty, the Minister for Finance wouldn’t give it to him. The Minister for the Environment would like an increase in rent supplement, the Department of Social Protection won’t give it to him. There’s alot of people not working together, pulling against each other in fact. We need to declare a state of emergency, get everybody around the table and singing off the same hymn sheet”.
Legislation to introduce those rent measures is due before the Dail shortly.
