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15th Dec 2016

The government has ballsed up the new rent cap legislation

Carl Kinsella

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been working together for the past week or so in order to establish rent caps in cities and towns around Ireland.

The purpose of the legislation is to curb the rent crisis that is seeing renters priced out of the market in rent pressure zones that include not only Cork and Dublin but major commuter towns and other cities.

It was announced on Thursday afternoon that a deal had been reached between Ireland’s two main parties, and that a rent cap of 4% would be put in place for rent pressure zones.

That is until a major cock-up was noticed by Sinn Féin TD Eoin O Broin. The mistake was described as “gigantic” by Today FM’s Gavan Reilly.

The mistake would see renters who are at the end of a two-year freeze see their rent go up by as much as 8% thanks to a drafting error.

According to Today FM, the government is now racing to push through a correction that will amend the legislation to only allow for increases of up to 4%.