Rental Sector Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22 ============================================================ Rory Hearne (SD), Dublin North-West We have record homelessness, with over 5,300 children homeless right now and living in emergency accommodation. We have a cost-of-living crisis, with families struggling to afford the basics, many of them renters. Hundreds of thousands of renters in the coming years, who are struggling to pay the basic costs of living, will not be able to afford the new market rent. Does the Minister agree that rents will increase as a result of these measures in the coming years? As a result of changes that he is about to make, rents are going to increase. That is the truth. Rents will be increased to market rent when tenancies change whereas there was a 2% rent cap when a tenancy changed previously. That is no longer going be the case. Can the Minister answer that straight question? Does he agree that rents are going to change and increase immediately in the coming years as a result of these changes? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-22