Rents across the country soar to all time high of €1,200 a month
Rents across the country have soared to a new all-time high of €1,200 per month.
Latest figures from Daft.ie show the average price in Dublin now stands at €1,774 per month, an increase of over 12% on the same time last year,
Cork experienced a jump of over 5%, Galway, 9.8% and Limerick rose by 10.9%.
Author of the report, Ronan Lyons says attempts by the Government to curb rents - do not seem to be working.
He said: "There isn't a single part of the country where rents are increasing less than 4% a year which is what the rent presure zones are designed to do.
"It is not clear to me that the system of rent pressure zones is working, in fact it may be having the opposite effect."
Prices are worst in Dublin where renters pay over €1700.
Daft's Ronan Lyons says we're not building the right type of homes.
He said: "We don't have any shortage of a family home, the problem is that the country is missing close to half a million apartments.
"My own estimate is that Dublin alone needs one apartment building of 200 homes a week for the next few decades."
Mr Lyons also says there is a chronic shortage of homes available to rent.
He said: "There were just under 3,400 properties available to rent nationwide, that's for the entire country.
"If you go back three years, rents were rising rapidly then, so it was an under supplied market three years ago, at that point there were 5,400 on the rental market."
Homelessness charity Focus Ireland says the Daft figures show the Government's rent pressure zones aren't working.
Mike Allen of Focus Ireland says loopholes in the law allow landlords to get rid of tenants and raise the rent by more than the four per cent limit.
He said: "The minister has to change that legislation, he has to get rid of that loophole and he has to make sure that families and other people in rented accommodation can rely on the tenancy treatment they have and not see it torn up at a moments notice."
Mr Allen also admits that controls will not solve the underlying problem but says they will help alleviate the symptoms.
He said: "Sometimes you need to deal with the symptoms.
"If a patient has a fever you need to deal with that fever so they don't die, over heated rent is essentially a fever, we need to get that under control."
