Two landlords have received criminal convictions and more than €7,000 in fines for failing to register their rental properties.

As the festive season draws to a close, I am reminded of a recent interview on Morning Ireland with Mike Allen, director of advocacy at Focus Ireland.

There are tentative signs that the shattered construction industry is at long last responding to the acute shortage of new houses.

Disputes lodged against landlords over rents more than doubled in the period leading up to the coalition’s rent control proposals while there was also a spike in calls to a helpline for tenants.

It is somewhat bizarre that, less than a decade after one of the biggest housebuilding binges ever experienced in a developed economy, we are now trying to grapple with the issue of housing shortage in some areas.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny should declare a national emergency on rent and housing, a leading homeless campaigner has said.

There were at least 4,089 complaints regarding alleged antisocial behaviour (ASB) in 21 local authority areas last year — and the number of difficult tenants removed from their homes could rise this year as councils enact new powers.

With a general election approaching, the Government can take satisfaction that many of the issues that arose after the crash have been addressed. The economy is growing again and the public finances and banking system have been stabilised.

A distraught woman who is defying an eviction order and refusing to leave her Cork City apartment has pleaded with city officials to save her from a life on the streets.

Eight tenants of council houses in Cork City have either been evicted or voluntarily left their properties this year after being found to be involved in persistent antisocial behaviour.

Spiralling rents are undermining efforts to combat homelessness, according to the Peter McVerry Trust.

A generation of Irish people face the prospect of not owning their own property for at least another decade, a major conference on housing has been told.

The couple pleading for a house after they were asked to leave emergency hotel accommodation yesterday were ordered out of a private rented house four years ago for failing to pay rent.

Rents in the private sector rose by 5.8% nationwide in 2014, with rent for houses up 4.8% and apartment rents up 6.4%, as with the last three months of 2013.

An application for re-possession, to remove the businesswoman Jackie Lavin from a luxury Italianate mansion, formerly owned by her partner Bill Cullen, in the heart of the Killarney National Park has been adjourned — for the fifth time.

A woman told a court yesterday her landlord unlawfully entered her home and threw out personal items, including an urn containing the ashes of her late husband.

A large number of state agencies, including the Equality Authority, have no employees with a disability despite a statutory target that they should account for at least 3% of their workforces.

Tenants’ rights concerning rent increases and long-term letting are to be promoted in an ad campaign

Average rents across Cork city and county have increased by 2.3% in the last three months.

Dublin rents are up nearly 10% in the last year, according to the national renting body.

The Private Residential Tenancies Board has today secured a temporary injunction to allow a family re-enter their Dublin apartment - after the locks were changed without notice.

Rent arrears key issue as board receives 2,861 resolution requests

An application to remove the businesswoman Jackie Lavin from a luxury Italianate mansion, formerly owned by her partner Bill Cullen, in the heart of the Killarney National Park has been adjourned.

Two charities have rejected the findings of a report on the rented housing sector that claims rent control regulations would not address rising costs for tenants.

Any young family or individual trying to keep pace with relentlessly climbing rents, any pensioner on the verge of losing their home of many years because rents are being increased far, far faster than their income will have been dismayed by yesterday’s report on the rental sector. It offered them little or no comfort much less security.

A new report is warning against the introduction of rent controls as a means of addressing problems in the private rental sector.

A report on rent stability in the private sector has warned that the introduction of rent regulations in Ireland would reduce supply in the market, increase black market activity, and have a negative impact on the very people the measures would attempt to assist.

Environment minister says ‘substantial’ legal concerns make a rent freeze a non-runner, but promises other options are being considered, writes Political Reporter Juno McEnroe

More than one-third of all disputes lodged with the country’s private rental watchdog are due to rent arrears.

New figures show rents are continuing to rise around the country.

Dublin rents have surged on average 10.5% over the 12 months to the end of June whereas increases in the rest of the country have been much more subdued at 2.6% over the same period, although overall rents are well below their 2007 peak.

Tens of thousands of households who still have not paid the so-called second-home tax have been warned "there is no escape".

Suspected fraud accounted for almost €41m of overpayments which were recovered from some 20,720 welfare recipients by the Department of Social Protection in 2012.