Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

The Minister of State said this Bill will bring security of tenure to tenants. However, security of tenure is no use to any tenant if they cannot afford the rent. The Bill is confusing because it will create different categories of tenants. There will be those in new tenancies that start after 1 March, there will be existing tenancies and then there will be students. There are different groups of tenants and some are going to be afforded protections while others are not. That is highly unfair. All tenants deserve security of tenure but they deserve security of tenure with an affordable rent. There should not be a differential across the tenancies.
In relation to the Residential Tenancies Board figures Senator Andrews referred to, the RTB figures are based on its predictions around existing rent and market rent. Sinn Féin looked at those. For example, in my county, Cavan, the average rent is €947 per month. The market rent in Cavan is €1,226. For a new tenancy after 1 March, a landlord could potentially increase the average rent by €279 a month. If landlords do that, and I predict many of them will, certainly if they have not raised the rent in some time and cannot do so again for another six years, it could result in a rent increase of €3,300 over a year for tenants. That is what we are basing our figures on. They are average figures, of course, and we do not know what every individual landlord is going to do.
However, I predict that the vast majority of landlords will take the opportunity to raise the rent when a new tenancy comes along because they will not get an opportunity to do it again for another six years.
The Minister of State talked about the need for an increase in supply, particularly with regard to apartments. I can probably see an increase in apartments in Dublin, maybe Cork and other large urban centres, but they will be quite high end and out of reach to most ordinary people. For counties like Cavan, Monaghan and the smaller, more rural ones where there will be small, non-major groups of apartments, I cannot see investors being interested in building apartments in those small-to-medium-sized towns. It will not benefit any tenant or prospective tenant in the likes of Cavan and the more rural counties.
We need an increase in the supply of public and affordable housing on public land to address this. Many people are facing eviction because their landlords are selling. Quite a number of landlords are selling as a result of this Bill because they find it confusing and feel it penalises them, especially smaller landlords who are now deemed large landlords if they have four or more properties. That is not many. Those tenants being evicted from a property are in an awful position because they have nowhere to go and cannot afford the rent. Even if they qualify for HAP, there are no available properties anyway. Landlords are picking and choosing, and most of them are not choosing HAP.
The Minister of State mentioned our referencing of Irish institutional investors, vulture funds and other big investment companies. The Minister of State said there had been engagement with people from all of the sectors concerning housing. While they might have been engaged with, were they listened to? Has the Government engaged with communities and groups like Focus Ireland, the Simon Communities in Ireland and so forth? I do not think they are in favour of this Bill. Rather, they are fearful of what will happen as a result of it. They are going to see an increase in the number of people trying to access the homeless services they provide. Maybe the Minister of State and the Department have engaged, but have they listened? I fear not.

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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