Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien has said he wants to see measures in the Budget to help "good landlords" and keep property owners from quitting the private rental market.

The Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin North said since 2016 there has been a loss of up to 8,000 landlords, representing around 44,000 tenancies, from the sector.

Mr O'Brien said landlords have been "demonised" and must be kept in the market while the State increases its stock of public housing. He said a record 25,000 social houses will be delivered this year.

Speaking at the launch of Focus Ireland's report on homelessness yesterday, Minister O'Brien acknowledged that the rental market is "dysfunctional".

"We need to take measures, in my view, in the upcoming Budget that will help to maintain as many of those private tenancies as possible whilst we're building up the public housing stock," he said.

In Association with

"We certainly do need - and this has not been agreed yet - to look at measures that can maintain good individual landlords within the markets. We've lost about 44,000 tenancies since 2016 and about 8,000 landlords within that system.

"What was happening was the investment in public housing was not at a level that was needed.

"Now we have the capital base, we're going to deliver more homes this year, and social housing than we've ever done before, more affordable homes... for the first time in a generation," he said.

"But whilst we're doing that, we need to protect as many people as we can who are in private tenancies, to make sure that those tenancies can be maintained through the provision of HAP [the Housing Assistance Payment] and also looking at measures that can ensure that we can keep good landlords in this system whilst we're building up our public housing stock."

Mr O'Brien would not be drawn on what housing measures will be announced during the Budget.

"We're coming close to a resolution on a number of fronts. My own view is that we certainly have to look [at] the private rental market and what measures can be taken or should be taken to try and arrest the continued exit of people from that market."

The Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) and the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers (IPAV) will today call on the Government to introduce a new 25% tax rate for landlords.

In their submission to the Oireachtas Housing Committee, they argue the move would "encourage small private landlords to remain in the market and support new investment". They call for investment funds, which currently pay no tax on rental income, to also pay a 25% rate to fund the move.

"It is proposed by us that this be funded from the introduction of a tax rate of 25% for all investment funds/REITS operating in the residential rental market, which would bring some much-needed equilibrium to the treatment of landlords," Mary Conway, chairwoman of the IPOA, will tell TDs and senators.

"The State cannot afford to allow funds with annual rental profits of hundreds of millions of euro to operate on a tax-free basis, whilst their smaller private counterparts pay tax at up to 55%."

Sinn Féin have pushed back against the Minister's call for new measures for landlords. "The overwhelming majority of landlords who are leaving are either accidental landlords or people who have inherited a home from a family member who would be in negative equity," the party's housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said.

"Those people are leaving because house prices are at historic highs. Providing tax relief for those people isn't going to fix it.

"The second group of landlords who are leaving are pension pot landlords who very legitimately bought an investment property during the Celtic Tiger who wanted a pension lump sum."

Government sources yesterday poured cold water on calls to cut tax on rental incomes to 25%. Saying that the €1.05billion tax package in the Budget will be "incredibly tight" and a new tax rate would be very expensive.

Changes to the income tax system will have to be funded from the €1billion fund, leaving little room for manouvre elsewhere.

It is also likely that excise duty cuts on electricity, gas, petrol and diesel that are due to expire on Budget Day will be maintained.

It is expected, however, that there will be some sort of relief for renters and landlords announced, but it is not yet clear what this will be.

A number of Government sources said Budget talks have been "fraught" and that many decisions could go "right to the wire".