Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-04
============================================================

Michael Collins (II), Cork South-West

We are again being told that these are only technical amendments and that nothing is changing. However, in places like west Cork and in Killarney, County Kerry, next door to us, that reassurance rings hollow. These sections lock in a planning regime that was never designed with coastal rural communities in mind. They copper-fasten restrictions on short-term letting that hit family homes, small operators and tourism-dependent villages while doing nothing to address the real causes of the housing crisis.
In west Cork, short-term letting is not about speculation or corporate landlords; it is about ordinary households renting a room or a home for part of the year to keep local tourism alive and to make ends meet in areas with limited employment options. This Bill preserves a one-size-fits-all approach that treats rural communities in the same way as inner-city Dublin. It does not deliver housing supply, tackle vacancy and dereliction or distinguish between large-scale operators and local families. We will be proposing amendments. I hope they will be accepted. We could then sit around the table to work on delivery. The Bill will remove accommodation from the tourism market, damage local economies and undermine livelihoods across west Cork, all without producing a single affordable home. Until the Government recognises that rural Ireland needs a different and balanced approach, I cannot support measures that punish rural communities while failing to solve the housing issue.
Part of this Bill relates to short-term lets. The situation in that regard is very serious. I have seen it myself. This legislation is going to come before the people next May. People the length and breadth of west Cork have been asking me about it because we depend on short-term lets. I am genuinely not sure where the Minister of State's constituency is.

---

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/2026-02-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-04