Rent controls are not the cure to tenants’ ills

Rent control is a false god. That any of its adherents are still around is testimony to the stubbornness of false logic surviving in the face of facts.

Rent controls are used all over the world and have the purpose of protecting tenants from unfair – and sometimes unlawful – price increases or tenancy terminations. Their consequences are widely covered, they work to the extent that incumbents benefit but, typically, new entrants don’t.

In Ireland, we...