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Dublin Live
7 hours ago
- Business
- Dublin Live
Housing Minister admits rents may go up due to new RPZ plans
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Housing Minister James Browne has conceded that rents 'may go up in certain cases' due to his new Rent Pressure Zone plans. The Fianna Fail TD also admitted that the housing target of 41,000 in 2025 is 'no longer realistic'. The RPZs restrict the amount a landlord can increase rents by 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Nationwide RPZs came into effect from midnight. The President confirmed last night that he had signed the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2025 into law following its passage through the Dail and the Seanad this week. More sweeping measures will be introduced next March that will see tenants enter into six-year contracts. However, landlords will be able to increase the rent to market rates either at the end of the six-year period or whenever a tenant leaves voluntarily. Minister Browne conceded that some rents may increase under the plans. He said: 'The only way we can get rents down is to increase supply. That's having a certain system in place for tenants, for landlords and investors. 'The current system is clearly not working. The Housing Agency report made that very clear, we have one of the toughest rent control systems in the world, and it is clearly impacting on supply. Rents may go up in certain cases. I certainly hope they don't.' Join our Dublin Live breaking news service on WhatsApp. Click this link to receive your daily dose of Dublin Live content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice . For all the latest news from Dublin and surrounding areas visit our homepage .
The Irish Sun
17 hours ago
- Politics
- The Irish Sun
‘New energy' was a bust – our Government's headless-chickening mirrors a world on fire & their goose is already cooked
4 THE Duracell Bunny is about to keel over. His batteries are on the blink. Advertisement The 'New Energy' promised by former Taoiseach, the young pup 4 Now, I'm not blaming Simon and the rest of the Dail ditherers for all of the world's catastrophes Credit: � 2025 PA Media, All Rights Reserved Far from hitting the ground running, the new Away from our shores, Now, I'm not blaming Simon and the rest of the Dail ditherers for any of those catastrophes. Advertisement That would be a bit mad and I'm not quite Looney Tunes yet. Give it time. The impending end of civilisation should keep you awake at night. If you can somehow manage to sleep soundly despite all the horror, drop me a line and reveal your secret. I'd love to know how your nerves aren't frayed, how you're not one step from the ward for the very, very nervous. Advertisement I wish they'd all just exit stage left with their wars and their egos. Or self-combust. Didn't we endure enough suffering during three interminable years of the Simon Harris 'does not expect' poll on Irish unity in this decade So, we certainly don't need the added torment of a But it's what we have. So suck it up as best you can. Throwing your Advertisement You may also want to douse your mobile phone in a flammable liquid and set it ablaze (that thing you look at for hours from one end of the day to the other contains all the poison that has turned many of us into angry, intolerant idiots). Burn it, smash it, dump it in a toilet, whatever, get rid of it. RARE HAPPINESS Nowadays, happiness only exists in the warm embrace of those closest to you, perhaps, or in a few silent moments you steal for yourself, or in the joy of sport, the hum of nature at peace with itself. Hope though is a hard commodity to find. Like ste behind a rocking horse, as a dear old friend used to say in moments of supreme clarity. There's precious little hope to be found away from these shores, except maybe on a desert island. Advertisement Even there, the hand of Trump hovers like a dark shadow, a Hooded Claw. At home too, hope is like a dried-up well, or a rain-drenched MORE DOOM AND GLOOM Hope is a hole in your shoe, especially if you're young. Those poor sods must be tearing their hair out at the gomdaw antics of those handed the power to fix their broken lives. A failed generation under the omnipresent Advertisement And what do we get from the banjaxed Duracell Bunny Harris? Not hope, no, just more doom and gloom. It's all he has to offer. What has he and his Government done in the last six months apart from talk and talk and talk. They're 'engaging key stakeholders' now and have set up an 'accelerating infrastructure taskforce' to deliver deliverables. Plenty of blah, blah, blah and damn all do, do, do. Advertisement EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES They had another talking shop on Monday, the National 'There are dark clouds on the horizon,' said Harris, his ever-greying face mirroring the sombre mood that has descended. Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious, though. Sherlock and that thing we do twice a day (if we're lucky) come to mind. The lads and lassies in Leinster House know their goose is already cooked and they're barely seven months into their Government term. Success or failure depends entirely on Trump now. Advertisement If tariffs arrive, then the game is up and the Government knows it. The days of having our coffers stuffed with many billions in US multinational cash is about to abruptly end. IRISH EXPORTS SOARED In the first three months of this year, Most of that was pharma giants getting their product to the States before Trump's tariffs kick in. Clever sods. We may have bumper receipts now from US multinationals, but they will fall off a cliff when Trump's tariff axe swings. Advertisement If only successive governments HADN'T put all the eggs in the one multinational basket. But they did. The success of the The Emperor has no clothes, no wonder the Duracell Bunny has lost his lustre. PUTIN'S LIES ON WAR CRIMES RUSSIA repeatedly claims it isn't targeting civilians in Ukraine. It's a nauseating lie, of course, but Putin and his army of psychopaths revel in deception and double-speak. Since Ukraine wiped out much of Russia's fleet of bombers in a daring attack last month, Putin has unleashed record-breaking volleys of missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities, indiscriminately bombing apartment blocks, shopping centres and schools. One such blatant attack by an Iranian drone was captured live on Ukrainian TV as it slammed into the side of a high-rise block of flats. It was a shuddering sight. Anyone inside would have died on impact. Putin doesn't care. His goal is to drag the war out as long as he can and exhaust the civilian population with nightly terror raids, like the one pictured here. Trump, who has said he 'likes' Putin, obviously hasn't the balls to stand up to the Russian tyrant, so he keeps on killing with abandon. LISTEN TO MACRON, FELLAS HE may have married his teacher, a woman 22 years his senior, but when French President As US President Donald Trump prepared to join Advertisement 4 Emmanuel Macron denounced the idea of using force in regime change in Tehran Credit: AFP He immediately denounced the idea of using force to achieve regime change in Tehran, reminding Trump and Israel's 'Does anyone think that what was done in For those with short memories, the invasion of It also fuelled the rise of Isis across the Advertisement The toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya also led to a brutal civil war in the north African country, one that divided the country in two and still bubbles along to this day. While conceding the Israeli point that it has a right to defend itself and that Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism around the world – Hezbollah and He said: 'I think the biggest mistake today is to use military means to bring about regime change in Iran because that would mean chaos.' Trump and Netanyahu aren't listening though. Netanyahu bluntly said that killing Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's Supreme leader, 'is not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict'. Trump added: 'We know exactly where he is. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.' Advertisement Khamenei appeared on TV from his bunker, vowing no surrender. Long weeks lie ahead of us. KIRBY A REAL JOY DUNNO if you're into cycling – the sport, not the dangerous exercise of getting from A to B on Irish roads – but I was delighted to hear the chuckling tones of cycling commentating legend Carlton Kirby on TNT Sports this week as he took viewers on a linguistic waltz during the Tour of Switzerland. Carlton is a fellow Sheffield Wednesday sufferer, so he's a kindred spirit. I could listen to him for days on end. Cadence, wit and repartee are his middle names. Among the gems he revealed about Switzerland is the fact each town, village or hamlet employs a caretaker whose job is to keep the public realm in tip-top shape. Grass verges are never overgrown, graffiti never up for long and fag butts as alien as ketchup on a fondue. FARCICAL CLUB CUP CLUB World Cup anyone? Nah, you're alright. 4 Bayern Munich beat a bunch of amateurs from Auckland 10-0 Credit: Getty Images - Getty Advertisement An online platform called DAZN is the only place you can watch it, if you are bothered to jump through hoops backwards trying to sign up to their free stream. DAZN reportedly paid $1BILLION for the privilege of being the exclusive broadcasters. The competition, which kicked off last weekend, soon descended into farce after Who wants to watch that? Not even the most die-hard sports fans, and I count myself among their number, would get excited by a Club World Cup. Advertisement Reports from The Club World Cup will limp to a conclusion over the next few weeks out of the spotlight. Feck all people will tune in. And Fifa will quietly drop it when they realise it's a dead duck. HIQA REPORTS ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE HIQA must have read my column last week, because this week they confirmed they have passed reports on alleged abuses at two Emeis Ireland-run nursing homes in Dublin and Portlaoise to Gardai. Nothing less will do. Hiqa also reported some 198 allegations of abuse at one of them, yet they went on to say that it 'didn't necessarily mean a failure at compliance'. Talk about utter hogwash. Hiqa is as useful as a monkey without a tail.
BreakingNews.ie
a day ago
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Over 3,700 empty council-owned homes in Ireland, Dáil told
There are over 3,700 empty council-owned homes across Ireland, the Dail has been told. The Government is to issue a circular to local authorities to say health and safety should be the only thing to delay empty council-owned homes being allocated to people. Advertisement Aontu leader Peadar Toibin told the Dail on Thursday that there were 3,779 vacant council-owned homes across Ireland based on Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to local authorities. He compared keeping council homes empty to exporting food during a famine. 'We also FOI-ed the local authorities as to the number of local authority homes that are empty in this state,' Mr Toibin said during Leaders' Questions. 'In the jaws of the worst housing crisis in the history of the state, there are 3,779 council owned homes that are empty. Advertisement 'Now, having empty homes in the middle of a housing crisis is akin to exporting food in the middle of a famine.' Tanaiste Simon Harris said he agreed that council-owned homes 'lie empty for far too long'. 'I've had a lot of discussions with a lot of people who are saying 'Hang on, if only I have to get into that house. I don't need the divil and all done, I just needed to be safe and I just need to be warm.' 'That's why government intends to issue a circular to all local authorities to make it clear, health and safety should be the only grounds for the delaying of the giving out of a local authority home, not the bells and whistles.' Advertisement Mr Toibin also accused the Government of understating homeless figures by 892 people and of understating the housing waiting list figures by over 16,000. Aontu leader Peadar Toibin (Brian Lawless/PA) He said he had sent Freedom of Information requests to every local authority in the country asking how many people are homeless in their area. He said this produced a figure of 16,472, which was above the official homelessness tally of 15,580. He also said that when local authorities were asked how many people were on their housing waiting lists, they came back with a figure of 75,000, which is above the official government figure of 58,824. Advertisement 'Your ability to account the number of people who are on the housing waiting list at the moment is out by the population of Tullamore,' he said. Mr Harris said that the anomalies were likely a result of duplications, as people may engage with more than one local authority for housing needs, particularly those living at county borders. 'These figures aren't figures calculated by the government in a party political sense. These are figures calculated by the state in a robust, impartial manner,' he said. Mr Toibin responded to say that it was not possible to be on two housing waiting lists simultaneously. Advertisement 'There wasn't as much pirouetting and spinning at my daughter's ballet recital as I just saw there,' Mr Harris replied. 'This is far too serious to engage in conspiracy theories here.' Mr Harris also accused Sinn Fein of being the biggest property owners in the Dail while being quizzed on whether rents would rise. Sinn Fein's health spokesperson David Cullinane, during a press conference at the Clayton Hotel in Dublin, during the launch of their new health policy (Archive/PA) Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane called on the government to 'stop it, scrap it' in relation to changes to rent pressure zones (RPZs). Mr Cullinane said that the rent changes will hurt students and workers 'stuck in an ever spiralling rental trap'. 'You talk about a balance. The balance here is tipped in favour of the vulture funds and the cuckoo firms and the investors. 'More money for them, more profit for them, which is always the case under Fine Gael, who represents a cosseted, privileged class, from my perspective. 'But see, when it comes to ordinary people who have to pay increase costs on groceries, on insurance and now on rent, they're the ones who are paying the price.' In response, Mr Harris said Sinn Fein were the largest property owner in the parliament. Tanaiste Simon Harris speaking to the media (Liam McBurney/PA) The Fine Gael leader quoted the party's director of finance Des Mackin, who told the Irish Times in 2020 that the party owned 40 to 50 properties across the island, with seven in Belfast. 'Don't talk to me about the privileged classes when the largest property owners and investors in this house is the Sinn Fein party,' Mr Harris said. 'The biggest property owners in Dail Eireann, the biggest property investors are Sinn Fein, so don't give me this 'We're on the side of the working people'. 'It's just a load of bull that people see right through.' Ireland Housing target of 41,000 'not realistic', Minister... Read More Mr Harris cited the Central Bank analysis that indicated the RPZ changes would have 'a positive' impact on supply and said that Sinn Fein's call for reference rents would have seen rents rise for existing tenants. He said the government would announce next month investment in 'key enabling infrastructure' to deliver homes, including water, wastewater and energy supplies. He also said that the government would take 'more measures to protect students' in the budget.
The Irish Sun
2 days ago
- The Irish Sun
Family's plea for cold case review of Elizabeth Plunkett murder raised in Dail after '50 year delayed' inquest
THE family of a woman who was killed by Ireland's first serial killers are calling for a cold case review, the Dail heard today. In 1976, 23-year-old Elizabeth Plunkett from Ringsend in Advertisement 4 Elizabeth Plunkett was murdered by John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans Credit: RTE 4 The sickos had also killed a second woman named Mary Duffy Credit: RTE 4 The shocking case is at the centre of a new RTE podcast called Stolen Sister Credit: RTE The sickos had While Shaw was convicted of Mary Duffy's murder, he was never convicted of Elizabeth's killing. The shocking case is at the centre of a new Elizabeth's sisters Kathleen and Bernadette are calling for a cold case review by Advertisement Read more in News She said: 'They are not legally regarded as victims within the Parole Board process. This only came to light in 2023. The Justice Minister is aware of this. 'An inquest was delayed for 50 years. I raised this issue in the Dail last year. The inquest was finally held in January. I am glad about that. 'However, their solicitor, who wrote a follow-up letter to the Justice Minister, the Garda Commissioner and others on 28 May has not yet received a response.' Advertisement MOST READ IN THE IRISH SUN Taoiseach He said: 'I thank the Deputy for raising this very serious and sensitive issue for the families concerned. 'I will ask the Minister for Justice to deal directly with Deputy Bacik and with the family as well in respect of endeavouring to bring closure to this for all concerned and a resolution of the issues outstanding.' 4 The family of a woman killed by Ireland's first serial killers are calling for a cold case review Credit: RTE Advertisement
The Irish Sun
3 days ago
- Health
- The Irish Sun
‘We need accountability & transparency', warns Dail health watchdog as CHI to face grilling over series of scandals
THE HEAD of the Dail's health watchdog has warned bosses at underfire Children's Health Ireland that full accountability and transparency is needed when they face TDs and Senators later this week. The body that runs our children's The latest issue to hit CHI saw an internal report reveal a culture of This shocking report also unveiled problems with the handling of waiting lists that resulted in some children being left waiting too long for much needed surgeries that they could have got from other doctors. CEO Lucy Nugent, ex-chief Eilish Hardiman, clinical director Ike Okafor, and Head of Spinal Surgery David Moore are set to face the Watchdog chairman Padraig Rice has warned CHI bosses that he will demand full accountability and transparency when they come before TDs and Senators. Read more in News He told the Irish Sun: 'We need to see some accountability and transparency. 'We need them to start answering some of the questions we're putting to them and we need to see a culture change. 'There are lots of things that do need to change at CHI. 'They are going to be responsible for the transfer to the National Children's Hospital – one of the largest health infrastructure and capital projects in the history of the State. Most read in the Irish Sun 'We have to ensure that we're handing the keys of that hospital to a safe pair of hands and that it will be managed well. 'There have been a series of scandals and a series of issues with CHI and I think there are serious questions for CHI on how it is being managed, the internal culture, the internal communications, the working arrangements there, bullying. 'You are going to have to remove me from this Chamber,' Senator shouts as fury sparked over surgery waiting lists 'They have a lot of issues to address and a lot of that starts with changing that culture and core to that is transparency and accountability not just to the Oireachtas but to parents and to families.' The Social Democrats TD said that 'trust in CHI is on the floor for parents' and he believes the leaders of the State body need to work to restore that trust. Our Kids Can't Wait Campaign WAITING lists in Ireland have long been a national disgrace. More than 106,000 children are on hospital waiting lists for all treatments. However, a new source of shame has emerged as 327 children wait for life changing spinal surgeries. Their conditions are getting worse while they languish on waiting lists. Such are the delays, many child patients will be outside the therapeutic window when their treatments are approved. Earlier this month, the Seanad heard how at least one child has become permanently paralysed since the issue was raised publicly before Christmas. Their plight has been spearheaded by campaigning Senator Tom Clonan, who himself has a child with a disability. Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has even admitted that the health service is failing these kids. Children are being allowed to deteriorate due to mismanagement, which has allowed the waiting lists to grow. The Irish Sun's Kids Can't Wait campaign aims to shine a light on how the State is failing sick children and give their families a voice. It will also force the Government to do something to clear the backlog of operations and give these children a chance of living a normal life. 1 CHI's CEO Lucy Nugent is among those set to be grilled Credit: PR Handout image
