Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Christopher O'Sullivan (FF), Cork South-West

-----by driving up the supply of apartments and other units. It is all about supply. Of course there are other factors. We have to introduce affordable housing schemes and we are. We have to introduce social housing. We are building record amounts of social housing. That is all part of it. There is no one silver bullet to fix the housing crisis; there are many elements to this.
Senators also mentioned affordability. There is quite a lot of work being done on that issue. The Government's new plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, contains an action plan with regard to housing supply and targeting homelessness between 2025 and 2030. It will provide 90,000 affordable supports to help people secure a home of their own. That is the ambition in the plan over the next while. We are seeing some positive outcomes with the trends in the delivery of housing. Since 2022, 4,500 homes have been delivered by AHBs, local authorities the Land Development Agency. There is a strong pipeline of future developments with over 5,150 additional affordable purchase homes approved for support from affordable housing funds across 22 local authorities. Indications are good.
From a funding point of view, money is not the issue. This legislation should not be seen in isolation. The plan is being enabled by the largest ever capital investment in the history of the State of €275 billion over ten years to significantly upgrade the country's infrastructure and make the environment for building homes much better.
We are trying to put in place an environment for a significant upscaling and delivery of housing. Direct funding for housing will be at unprecedented levels. In 2026 alone, more than €9 billion in capital funding will be provided through the Exchequer to the LDA and the Housing Finance Agency. This cannot be seen in a silo. It is all part of an approach across different Departments and Government agencies to ensure we increase supply at record levels. This legislation ensures the involvement of the private sector, which is key. However, the State is doing more than ever. The State currently delivers the biggest proportion of housing in the country. That is probably not how it should be. We scale up and do as much as we can to increase delivery. However, the private sector will have to play its part.
Senator Stephenson referred to women fleeing domestic violence, which is a really important consideration. I appreciate her doing that. Everything possible should be done to accommodate such women. However, again what is being lost in the conversation is that we now have a nationwide rent pressure zone, which means there are controls, and we also have security of tenure. In addition, new tenancies will not be reset to market value.
A question that was repeatedly asked was when we will see a cooling down of the significant and unprecedented increase in rents currently seen throughout the country. Again, supply is the key here. We have to get supply to critical mass so that we get to the point where supply is sufficient.
Senator Harmon referred to pensioners. To reiterate that point, the motivation of this legislation is to have the dual effect of, first, increasing supply and creating an environment where it is again viable to build units, apartments in particular, and, second, there is security of tenancy, which is also key. It is about protecting the tenant but also increasing supply. That is really important.
I agree with Senator Harmon that the word "landlord" should be done away with. That is just my own opinion. I do not know what the potential is for that happening. I agree with the Senator that is an outdated term.
To come back to the amendments, this amendment deletes the lines that will allow me to move the provisions in the Bill, yet it is asking for a report within three months. It does not make sense and it cannot work. That is one of the main reasons the Government opposes the amendments.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-18