Attorney General warns landlords face prosecution for breaking rent rules under new bill

Attorney General warns landlords face prosecution for breaking rent rules under new bill

Séamus Woulfe

Attorney General Séamus Woulfe SC has warned landlords that they will soon face criminal prosecution if they flout rent pressure zone rules, The Irish Times reports.

The senior lawyer addressed a Lawyers Against Homelessness (LAH) event hosted by Constance Cassidy SC in Dublin yesterday.

He said the Government’s Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill, due to be published shortly, would provide for greater enforcement of rent pressure zones.

RPZs were first introduced in December 2016, but critics argue that enforcement has been poor.

Mr Woulfe said: “There have been arguments that [rent pressure zones] are not being complied with by landlords.

“[Under the new bill] it’s going to effectively become a criminal offence to breach that legislation.”

Yesterday’s event, the fourth LAH event so far, was sponsored by law firms Reddy Charlton, ByrneWallace and Berrymans Lace Mawer (BLM).

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