Mr Faughnan made the statement in a letter to the Irish Examiner in response to an RTÉ Prime Time programme on May 10th which outlined dire conditions in the private rental sector.
Mr Faughnan said the four cases in the programme were “exceptional circumstances” and disagreed with that impression that “landlords all over Ireland are providing sub-standard accommodation.”
Defending landlords, Mr Faughnan said the real fact was that “landlords in Ireland provide 600,000 people with homes, over 95% of which are good quality and affordable.
“There are 250,000 tenancies registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB), 145,000 landlords and up to 600,000 tenants.
“There were 2,230 complaints lodged with the PRTB according to the latest available report (2010) – 59% by tenants, 37% by landlords, 4% others. This shows that less than 1% of registered tenancies have a difficulty and 1/3 of these cases are either settled, withdrawn by applicants or deemed withdrawn due to non-response from applicants.”
