Sir, – In defending Newton Emerson and his opinions on rent control (Letters, November 9th), Paddy Sweetman assumes that economists are housing experts.
Housing is a broad topic of which economics is but one small component. When was the last time he heard an economist discuss the relationship between housing and health, for example, or housing and equality, or housing and gender? Me neither.
A lack of rent control also creates a two-tier system: those who can afford the rent and those who cannot. Having to leave the private rental sector is the main route to homelessness in Ireland.
Publicly available research by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) this year shows that small landlords with properties in RPZs (rent pressure zones) are positive about RPZs as a measure to address rental inflation (35 per cent ) than are negative (25 per cent). Medium-sized landlords also see RPZs as a good idea, albeit one that might affect landlord-tenant relationships.
Mr Sweetman doesn’t refer to my proposed taxation solution which addresses his other points about return on investment and keeping landlords in the market.
Finally, as any housing expert knows, it is the RTB that regulates the rental sector and deals with landlord-tenant disputes, not the Property Registration Authority.
– Yours, etc,
Dr LORCAN SIRR,
Senior lecturer in housing,
Technological
University Dublin.