The Housing Minister has signalled he will not be introducing rent controls in a package of measures to be announced next month.

Simon Coveney is devising a new rental strategy as rents have now exceeded even those of the celtic tiger era.

It has led to fresh calls for some form of rent certainty to be introduced.

But minister Coveney says he does not want to do anything that would make it less attractive for properties to be built: “The balancing act here from a policy perspective is on the one hand to repsond to unsustainable rental inflation, which is causing huge problems for a lot of people.

“And at the same time in attempting to respond to that, we don’t actually put the dead hand of regulation on the construction sector and therefore stop any momentum that is starting to build more rental accomodation.”