Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central All those renters in existing tenancies will have their rents increased by 2%, not 25%. Existing tenancies will not be impacted negatively as a result of the changes. The changes arose out of an analysis undertaken by the Housing Finance Agency. Why did it do an analysis? It did an analysis because the Housing Commission said we needed to create certainty, clarity and stability in the rental market for the long term and that there would be clarity around that. That is the fundamental issue. However, the Minister has balanced that with greater security of tenure for tenants with the six years, essentially ending no-fault eviction where a landlord can end a tenancy without the tenant having done anything wrong. That is a significant protection for tenants. There is security of tenure and the national regulation extending RPZs to the entire nation. Those involved in social policy and the academic world have acknowledged and articulated that this is a significant increase in rental protection. The Housing Commission called for this. The ESRI called for this. It was looking for a 4% cap on rents. That is what they recommended. We said no, and that we would go for 2% on that. This Bill will give far more legal protection to renters than they have ever had in the history of the State. That is the bottom line. It was interesting that quite a number of people representing property interests threatened constitutional action with regard to this Bill. They do not like the security of tenure and protections that are provided to renters. There has been a lot of disquiet among many representing landlords around these changes. That has been articulated on quite a number of occasions. About 513,000 are people renting now in different categories, from the public to the private sector, but the tenancies of the more than 290,000 people who are currently renting will not be affected, and the Deputy knows that. That is the key element of this. Yes, we want to bring investment back into the market because we have not been building enough apartments to date. Supply is the key instrument we have to moderate rents in the medium term. Let us be under no illusion; we need more apartments and more housing. We got 36,000 houses built last year and we need to get to 50,000 per year. The State, which is allocating about €9 billion, is the main actor in the market at the moment, through supporting cost-rental and affordable housing and the building of public housing. The State is the main player in house building at the moment. The Department of Finance estimates that we need to spend about €20 billion per annum, between public and private sector investment, to get to that figure of 50,000 houses that the ESRI says we need. Some say we need even more. We have to have a balanced approach to protecting renters, particularly those in existing tenancies, and giving them greater protection in terms of security of tenure, but also then facilitating a far greater degree of construction, particularly in cities, of apartments because our density is not where it should be, in brownfield sites in particular. I would have thought everyone in this House was agreeable to greater investment. Is é atá i gceist againn ná i bhfad níos mó tithe a thógáil sa tír seo agus tacaíocht agus cosaint a thabhairt do thionóntaí na tíre. --- 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/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-25