Ciarán Hancock

Owen, Marion mentioned the dysfunctionality of the Irish property market.

And it's probably fair to say that even though prices for new homes are somewhere between 400 and 500 for most people,

It's still cheaper to buy than to rent in terms of your monthly repayments on the mortgage.

For a lot of people, it's cheaper.

You know, you reference the average monthly rent nationally for a two-bed apartment was just under 2,200 in Dublin.

It'll be higher than that.

And the reality is it's cheaper to get a mortgage and to buy, isn't it?

Marian, just on the new rent rules, the opposition out this morning saying, look, this is just evidence that these new rent rules that were introduced by the government are benefiting landlords and benefiting institutions who are in the build to rent sector here and bad for tenants.

Now, there is a bit of a...

I suppose there's pros and cons to these new rules.

So on the one hand, tenants can enjoy greater security of tenure.

So it's a new year, six year tenancies of minimum duration.

So perhaps that's the reason why a lot of landlords have been getting out of the markets.

I don't want to get stuck into a six year, another six years of tenancies.

letting out but at the same time landlords who manage to get their tenants out maybe in a cynical way can reset to market rents if they're not already charging market rents so that definitely does benefit landlords and otherwise those who are you know currently in a tenancy the rents can only go up by I think it's 2% or the rate of inflation so 2% at the minute given the rate of inflation so these new government rules in your opinion good or bad?

But is the opposition right when it argues that really these new rent rules are benefiting big institutions who are really only interested in apartment blocks for the top end of the market or in expensive student accommodation?

Student accommodation is very expensive now.

Yeah.

Finally, I just want to ask about the homes at the bottom of the garden proposal.

Just very quickly, the government plans to include these modular homes, some of them aren't modular at all, but anyway, in the rental room tax exemption so you can earn up to 14 grand a year tax-free rental.