Seller's Legal Pack: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-27 ============================================================ Maria McCormack (SF), Labour Panel I welcome the Aire Stáit to the House. I welcome this motion and the opportunity to talk to it. If someone is fortunate enough to be able to buy a home in today's market, we all agree that the process is far from fair and transparent. It is nice to hear that we are all aligned across the House that more needs to be done. For many buyers the process is stressful, drawn out and deeply uncertain from start to finish. The motion refers to specific legislative proposals that have come before the Oireachtas in the past. I do not intend to focus on just this. Instead, I want to speak to the lived experiences of people who come into my clinic who are trying to buy a home and the systemic failures that continue to exist in the property purchasing market. I hope this is an area that we can all collaborate on. In County Laois, I regularly meet first-time buyers and families who have spent months and, in some cases, years trying to secure a home and they describe the bidding process where they are given little or no information, where bids appear and disappear without explanation and where they are expected to make life-changing financial decisions without transparency or certainty. The lack of transparency in the purchasing and bidding process is one of the most consistent concerns I hear. Buyers are asked to trust a system that offers them very little reassurance in return. Linked to this is the widespread concern about false or inflated bidding. Whether wrongdoing has occurred, the perception alone is deeply damaging. It undermines confidence and leaves buyers feeling exposed and unprotected. Even where an offer is accepted, many buyers then face lengthy and exhausting delays, as Senator McCarthy mentioned. Sales can drag on for months, chains collapse and buyers are left out of pockets for surveys, legal fees and valuations, only to be told that the sale has fallen through. I have dealt with constituents in Laois who have gone through this cycle more than once, with no explanation and no clear recourse. At a regulatory level, there is a clear gap in consumer protection. The PRSA lacks sufficient powers, and buyers who believe there has been wrongdoing often find there is no clear source of information and no meaningful complaints mechanism. The authority is very limited in enforcement when issues arise. The reality is that buyers carry the emotional and financial risk and the uncertainty while having the least power in this transaction. That is why I believe these issues require serious Oireachtas consideration and comprehensive legislative reform. I welcome Senator Kelleher's remarks about the committee working on this and reviewing the different areas here because a lot of work needs to be done. Reform that makes the process of buying a home more open, transparent, timely and efficient, underpinned by real, enforceable consumer protections is important to all of us. I acknowledge again the work of Senator McCarthy and the Independent Group for bringing this matter forward. The concerns highlighted in this motion reflect what many of us are hearing directly from people trying to buy a home. I welcome the focus on transparency. This is really important to consumer protection and fairness in the purchasing process. That focus is both timely and necessary. I am really be interested in collaborating more on the issue because while there may be differences on legislation across the House, we do have strong common ground on the outcome we all want: a home buying process that is fair, open and genuinely protects consumers. I hope this is an area where we continue to work together constructively in this House and in our committee work as well. However, if we are serious about delivering real reform, we must be honest about the structures that are needed to make this happen. This will not be achieved while the responsibility for this area remains with the Department of Justice, which carries an extremely heavy legislative workload and many urgent reform priorities. Responsibility for the PSRA and the surrounding legislative framework work should be transferred as a matter of urgency to the Department of housing in line with the commitment in the programme for Government. Following that transfer, the Oireachtas housing committee, of which Senator McCarthy and I are members, should hold public sessions with all relevant stakeholders, including buyers, consumer advocates, auctioneers, legal professionals and regulators to examine what is and what is not working in the current system. That process should then inform a clear report for the Minister for housing and the Government can then commit to legislation on this issue during the term in office. Again, I welcome the opportunity for more collaboration here. We can really see that this is an issue and urge that this House considers moving responsibility from the Department of justice to the Department of housing as it would be beneficial. --- 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/seanad/2026-01-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-27