Rental Sector: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27 ============================================================ Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel I first commend the work my colleague Deputy Eoin Ó Broin has done in the area of housing, particularly for those in social housing and private rental properties, by leading the way in showing that there is an alternative model for our housing system. There is a lot of hopelessness among the public right now when it comes to the housing crisis and a lack of belief that the challenges we face in terms of affordability and access to decent housing can be overcome. This is hardly a surprise when we look at the housing Ministers we have been graced with in the past decade or more. In 2020, before the formation of the previous coalition Government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael stood before the Irish people and pledged to build 200,000 new homes during their term in office. This goal was not met. We are now well into a new Government term, and this goal of 200,000 homes, which itself was already too low, has still not been met. Rents and homelessness have increased year on year. Buying a home is only getting more difficult and more out of reach for working families. Rental properties are only getting harder to find, especially for those on HAP. Social housing is practically non-existent for the vast majority of people who need it and the conditions in existing social housing complexes are often unliveable due to poor maintenance and a lack of facilities. If someone were to join the Dublin City Council social housing list today, they are likely to be waiting a full decade, if not longer, before being offered a home. Social housing in this State was designed to be a safety net, but it is clearly not working if someone is falling for ten years before being caught in that safety net. Since 2014, Governments have announced housing plan after housing plan that promised to get our housing system back on track and end the housing crisis once and for all. How many times have we heard that? First came the social housing strategy under the Labour Party-Fine Gael austerity Government. Then came Rebuilding Ireland, which only made the housing crisis worse. Then we had Housing for All, which failed to meet its targets or improve access to housing. Each of these plans was an abject failure and the housing crisis has continued without a dent being made in it. Now, the Government has announced yet another housing plan, this time named Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030, which rehashes all the failed policies of the past decade. A critical piece in this new housing policy was the Government's rent-hike legislation, which has led to the fastest quarterly rise in rents since 2002. Under these new rules, landlords have been able to hike rents up to the highest possible market rate regardless of where they were before. This means that in the first quarter of 2026, the average private rent has jumped a staggering 7.8% in just three months. In that same period, eviction notices were up over 50%, as landlords looked to end their existing tenancy agreements and replace them with new agreements that are not exempt from these new rules. The Government knowingly pushed rental inflation to its highest level in a quarter of a century, solely in the hope that it will give additional incentives to developers and speculators. This is a perfect example of the Government's misguided approach to housing. Tenants are the last to benefit from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's housing policies while developers are the first, and often only ones, to gain from Government policy. The solution to the housing crisis is not going to be found by further tightening the noose on private renters and social housing tenants and it will not be found by selling out the country to foreign speculators and developers whose only interest is delivering a profit for their shareholders. The only solution will be for the Government to turn this disastrous approach around, institute an immediate rent freeze and eviction ban and accelerate the delivery of social and genuinely affordable homes. Social and affordable housing is ultimately the key to bringing down rents and ensuring that everyone who needs a home has a home. Cities like Vienna have a far healthier and affordable rental market, with housing costs in many cases half of what they are in Dublin. This is a direct result of 60% of homes in that city being owned either by the state or their version of approved housing bodies. In Vienna, a two-bedroom apartment can be found for just over €1,000 per month. In Dublin, that same apartment would cost an average of €2,500 a month, or over €30,000 a year. A family would need a six-figure income in order to afford to rent an apartment in this city. In new-build developments like the glass bottle site, rents are completely out of reach for all but a tiny, wealthy proportion of the population. Across the city, developers will not lower the rents on new-build apartment buildings, as that would reduce the speculative value of their properties. As a result, the buildings lie empty, while people sleep on the streets. We have homes without people and people without homes. A housing system that prioritises property values and investor profits over the public need is a broken system. That is what this motion is ultimately about. Our housing system is failing. It is failing renters, who are extorted for all they earn. It is failing social housing tenants, who are completely ignored by the State unless they miss a rent cheque. It is failing prospective buyers, who are seeing house prices constantly go up. The Government needs for once to admit it has made a mistake when it comes to housing. It is well past time to start putting renters and tenants first, not last. I would like to ask the Minister about the Glass Bottle site, which I have raised here previously. There is ongoing concern that the groups down there that have worked with the Government, Dublin City Council and the developers are being ignored by the Minister. They have put in a request to meet the Minister and he has failed to meet them. It is hard to understand why. Maybe the Minister could give some insight as to why he is refusing to meet the Glass Bottle residents' groups who have worked tirelessly to ensure the community is involved and housing is delivered in Ringsend and on Pearse Street. Another group of residents who have been looking to meet the Minister but he has avoiding them is the Pearse House residents. The Minister pulled the regeneration of their flax complex and he came up with a yellow-pack version for the regeneration of Pearse House. The residents have asked to meet the Minister and he has refused to meet them. The least they deserve is to meet with the Minister, engage with him and figure out a way of delivering better homes for families in Pearse Street. That is all they deserve. They deserve that and it is the least they deserve. I ask that the Minister gives some insight as to why he has refused to meet the Pearse House residents and the Glass Bottle residents' group. I second the motion. --- 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/2026-05-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:00+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-27