Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel

The Minister of State mentioned increasing supply in Dublin. The reality is that increase will be in high-end property. I was on the glass bottle site where 3,800 new homes are planned. The Minister of State is right that 350 of those will be social homes. In my view, and in the community's view, it is not enough but it is welcome. The number of people on the housing list in that area is through the roof. As I said, people cannot afford to rent or buy, so the only option is to live in overcrowded homes in Ringsend, Pearse Street or wherever it is and then look to rent. The reality is they cannot afford to do so. It costs €3,000 and €3,500, respectively, for a two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartment in the glass bottle site. In another building not far from there, the Shore Club, it cost €675,000 to buy a one-bedroom unit. No social housing was allocated on that site. The developer made a financial contribution off site and homes are being built. While that is all very well, not all of them are being built in the community. The council had to buy homes down in Heuston Quarter, so only some of these homes are in and around the area.
As regards the high-end, expensive apartments, it costs almost €1 million for a two-bedroom apartment in the Shore Club. My understanding is that not all of those have been sold. Who is able to afford them? If people do not live in them, they will rent them out at astronomical rents. While there may be more units coming on stream, they not for ordinary working families who are already squeezed and struggling with the cost of living. Is that what the Government is doing?
The Minister of State is telling me that part of the solution to the housing crisis is to produce top-end apartments. In one of the blocks, there is a little home cinema which residents can book. There is a gym, which is absolutely fantastic, but that is not going to make these apartments affordable for ordinary people living in the inner city. The glass bottle site has a fantastic tradition. It is intertwined with the local community in Ringsend. Families worked there and were let go out of it. At one stage, the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, offered the Government a discount on the sale price of the site, and the Government refused. It could have built 3,500 units of public, social and affordable housing with various types of cost-rental homes, but it did not take up that offer. That is a shame on the Government.
In regard to high rents in Cork, the Minister of State misunderstood my question. We are talking about new tenancies. The Minister of State is saying rents in existing tenancies will not go up. What he is doing there is deflecting from what we are talking about. The Bill states that new tenancies from 1 March will go to market reset. Is that the case? If so, what assessments were done by the Department? If assessments were done, why will the Department not publish them? If they were not done, how can the Department have figures for how much rents will go up? The Minister of State might come back to me on that.

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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