Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2022 (Section 4(2)) (Scheme Termination Date) Order 2026: Motion
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25
============================================================

Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The Deputy can look at the figures. It does not make any sense for landlords to use this scheme. I am not saying we will not find the odd case here or there. It does not make any sense because people can make more money in other ways. They can make up to €1,166 a month tax-free from the rent-a-room scheme. They can get €600 from this, and they are going to be able to get €400 in the future. The vast majority, 71% are people living in host homes so they do not have a whole property to go. If they have a whole property, obviously, they could get much worse than that. If the Government proceeds with the cuts, the result will be people exiting the scheme. We know that 86% of people say they could not continue to host without the ARP. We know this is because we are in a cost-of-living crisis that is getting worse.
If it is ended, there could be 35,000 people suddenly trying to find private rental accommodation. The vast majority are women and children who would end up homeless, sleeping rough or trying to access totally overstretched emergency accommodation. We have a scheme that is cheap for the State and is providing accommodation for people. The idea that the Government needs to cut it back and try to bring it to an end makes no sense whatsoever. It just serves to pit ordinary people against each other and it would make the housing crisis worse.

---

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/2026-03-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-25