Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Maria McCormack (SF), Labour Panel I thank the Minister of State. I want to come back in on the amendment because I am confused. I know the Minister of State said he thought it should be ruled out of order. I think it was accepted that it was a valid amendment. Perhaps the Minister of State could explain it to me more clearly. What we are seeking is the deletion of a section and the insertion of a section that we are requesting to have a report after three months so we can get analysis. Will the Minister of State clarify that point? We seem not to be on the same page there. I do not think any of the Seanad staff have made a mistake in accepting the amendment. I want to go back over some points. The figures that are there do not refer to existing tenancies. We are talking about new tenancies after 1 March, which will go through the market reset. It might be fine for people in cities. In fact, it is not going to be fine for people in Dublin or anything like it. However, those people are not going to be impacted as much as people where I live. I am from Laois. I talk about it enough in this House. No big private investors are going to come to Laois and build anything for us. We cannot get anyone to do anything there. We are the forgotten county. We are really going to suffer. The Minister of State mentioned that everywhere is going to be a rent pressure zone now, but what security of tenure is there going to be for people if they are facing such a dramatic increase in their rent now? It is the dramatic increase in rent that we have a problem with. Let us consider Josie down the road, who might be paying €900 rent now. She might only be there for two years. She moves out and has to move elsewhere. The average market rent in Laois is much higher than €900. I know a lot of people around Laois who are paying €900 or €1,000 in rent but that is not the market value at the moment. The market value is substantially higher. I worry that big landlords are going to completely take advantage here. These are the issues we are pointing out. These are the reasons we want reports that will allow us all to sit down together and look at the situation. I have sat down with representatives of the Simon Communities and Focus Ireland. We have looked through the reports. I have looked at the analysis and the homeless figures that they are expecting as a result of the impact of the driving up of rents. It is concerning. I know the Minister of State is saying that the Government is collaborating or engaging with those organisations, but it is not the same collaboration as we have been having, day in and day out, with the Simon Communities and all the homeless agencies. I cannot see how this Bill will have any positive impact for people in Laois. I cannot see how it will have any impact for people all over Ireland except the big developers. We need to appeal to those big developers to come in here and build more properties but this is not going to do it. The economic experts have come out to say this will not result in the building of many houses. I am hearing so much deflection but am not hearing points or answers. Is the Minister of State disagreeing with the facts? I am not talking about existing tenancies. I am talking about new tenancies. That is exactly what this Bill does. From 1 March, new tenancies are going to market reset. That means the highest point in the market in a certain area and it is a massive problem. There is no point in fluffing around. We are here. Rents are going to go up for people and we have nothing to say about it. I would like to hear answers on those aspects. --- 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/2026-02-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-18