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A GROUP REPRESENTING thousands of Irish landlords has been given a dressing down by the competition watchdog after threatening to hit tenants with new fees in the wake of rent controls being introduced.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) announced today it has concluded an investigation into “potential anti-competitive conduct by the Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA)”.
The IPOA is a national association representing approximately 5,000 landlords across Ireland.
The competition watchdog said that it started its investigation into the IPOA after a press statement issued in response to the government’s plans for rent controls in the private residential rental sector.
In December, the government announced that it would target ‘rent pressure zones’, or regions where there is sustained tension in the rental market.
Officials said they planned to cap rent increases in the designated zones to 4% per year over a three-year period.
However the landlords’ lobby group reacted angrily to the move, releasing a statement that said property owners “were considering a range of potential measures, including the introduction of a number of new charges to tenants and the withdrawal from state-sponsored rental schemes”.
Coordinating business
The competition commission said today that competition law “expressly forbids a trade association from coordinating the business conduct of its members, including the terms and conditions under which they are prepared to supply a product or service”.
It said that in response to the watchdog’s concerns, the IPOA has given the following commitments:
Compliance
CCPC chair Isolde Goggin said in a statement that her organisation “views any attempt to coordinate business conduct very seriously as invariably consumers will suffer”.
“The commitments provided by the IPOA allow for a swift conclusion of our investigation and importantly, ensure the IPOA’s commitment to fostering a culture of competition law compliance within its organisation and membership,” she said.
“While trade associations have the right to represent the interests of their members, it is important that they not only take an active role in ensuring their own compliance with competition legislation, but they must not allow or facilitate commercially sensitive discussions between their members.”
Several other trade associations, including the Approved Tour Guides of Ireland, the National Association of General Practitioners and the Irish Medical Organisation, have also recently been subjected to CCPC investigations.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and posted on Fora.ie
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“It’s not necessary to censor the news, it’s sufficient to delay the news until it no longer matters” – Napoleon
These 30 year secrecy rules do not serve the interests of the people of Ireland.
They only protect the elites from accountability.
Why do you think they chose 30 years?
Because most politicians are in power in their 50′s and 60′s, and by the time 30 years has elapsed, they’re either too old to be jailed, or dead.
@Franklin Roosevelt:
IF (a big if) the rumours about King Gerry are true it makes one think about the timing of his stepping down.
@Franklin Roosevelt: In any government as in any large business have to have some secrecy…Cant publish every cabinet discussion that day for instance…Or every ministeral email…It would damage trust in the government… 30 years seems ok….
@P.J. Nolan: who is King Gerry? I know of no monarch with that name.
And what are the rumours?
@John003: I’m not asking for that.
But for the big decisions… like what was the correspondence of the government between 2008 and 2010? When Ireland issued a blanket bank guarantee, then forced us to pay a 150 billion debt.
Surely it’s in our interest to know all the details of that? And not wait until 2040 to find out.
And what about the friendship that bankers had with Brian Cowan?
In the 1930′s, when businessmen and politicians colluded, it was called fascism.
@P.J. Nolan: and do you believe these rumours spreaded by a priest?
@John003: time to release the Dublin Monaghan bombing files so
’87 – Cov city won the FA cup
Glad they were able to maintain their form :(
The current car registration system in Ireland started in 1987
I was born 3 years later so i am going to let myself away with that disastrous score.
@Con O’Driscoll: I can’t work out how you were two different ages in the same year…. I’ve tried to do the equation several times and it just doesn’t seem possible. Please inform us mere mortals of your ingenious reasoning!!!
@Paul Linehan: because he was 3 for the first part of the year and 4 after his bday…
@Karen NíDhochartaigh: That makes perfect sense now, thanks Karen….
The Reagan question answer is wrong. Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall was in 1987. Not the answer given in the question
I was at Slane and Bowie that year. It was pretty damn good !!!
@Catherine Sims: Oh, I hated missing it in Slane so much, the Glass Spider tour. But I got to see him play in Wembley that year! I always envied older people who saw him years ago, & never thought he’d hit the road again. It was great to hear him live.
Had my first ciggie in 1987 , puked outside the exam hall lol
8/10 and I only turned 9 that year.
5/10. Hard to believe that more people went to see Three Men and a Baby than Good Morning Vietnam. I doubt those figures.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: it had magnum P.I and Sam from cheers left minding a baby. Definatly the safest movie of the 4 for families at that time. The other 3 are movies that still have appeal to this day, no one of any age or gender could be arsed sitting through 3 men and a baby now.
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