Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-12
============================================================

Anne Rabbitte (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I thank the Minister for being here. It is important, as a Senator who is a member of a Government party, to make a few things clear and straight. I am disappointed that Senator McCormack has left the building because I would like to give her a few answers.
This Bill will give renters far more legal protection than they have ever had in the history of the State, while increasing the supply of homes available on the market. It is about striking a balance but it is also a necessary intervention. We are in a housing crisis, an emergency and we have to make decisions that will increase the much needed supply of homes for rent to people. This is the biggest improvement in rental protections in the history of the State. From now on, when tenants sign a lease, they can have far more confidence that they will have their home for at least six years. The days of being evicted on spurious grounds are over. We are putting real protections in place for tenants. Ultimately, the best way to stop rents increasing year after year is to boost supply and that is what the Bill will do by encouraging more investment in the market. These are difficult decisions to take but we are in a housing crisis. We could sit back and avoid making any decisions but that would mean the situation would only get worse and we are not prepared for that.
There are a lot of slogans but no real solutions are coming forward. It means there will be new rules and new tenancies from 1 March that offer greater protection. What we did not hear from Opposition speakers was about the 240,000 existing tenancies that will not be affected until the tenants decide to leave their accommodation. Tenants will be hit by enormous rent increases, according to what I heard for the past eight minutes. That is not the case. No one will be able to increase the rent beyond the average rent for the area. At most, people will end up paying the average rent. Rents are high in Ireland. No one denies that at all. There is no doubt about it, but that is why we are only allowing landlords to bring rents up to the average rent. That is not 10% above the market or 20% on top of it. It is just to the average rent. I completely understand that even the average will be difficult for a lot of people but these changes will ultimately allow us to start bringing rents down by boosting supply.
The Bill does three things and it is important to keep saying them over and over again. It strengthens tenants' rights far beyond where they have ever been. It will increase supply of places to rent and ultimately, it will help to bring rents down by boosting supply. I heard Senators talk about incentivising landlords. I have heard it repeatedly now. It is the complete opposite. This Bill introduces far stricter limits on when people can be evicted than existed before. On top of that, we have increased the funding for the RTB by 70% to ensure rules are properly policed. I do not know how the Opposition can stand and watch the supply of apartments dry up. Every expert we have talked to has said rent resets are necessary if investors are to start coming back into apartment building and the best way to stop runaway rents is to boost supply. I commend this legislation to the Seanad and I will be supporting the Minister through all Stages in the Seanad.

---

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/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:37+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12