Rental Sector: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27 ============================================================ Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel We have had a housing crisis in this country for some time and the reason for it is that Fianna Fáil crashed the economy in 2008 and decided to stop building houses. It had no foresight whatsoever and allowed our construction workers to leave the country and go elsewhere. Now we have in excess of 17,000 people in homeless accommodation, including 5,000 children. This does not count all the families who do not access emergency accommodation, including those who sleep on our streets, in their parents' box rooms and on their friends' sofas. There are also the people who are emigrating because they cannot afford to live here. The Minister speaks about constituents going into his office to tell him their stories. He has the power to do something about it but he is not doing it; he is making the situation ten times worse. Evictions in the first three months of this year were up by 51%. In my county of Cavan there were 77 evictions in the first three months of the year. A total of 111 families have presented as homeless so far this year in my county. This is a mixture of families, couples and single people. Of these, 29 families or households had to access emergency accommodation. I have to commend Cavan County Council, which does its utmost to try to house people, avoid them having to go into emergency accommodation and help them find rentals. It is difficult and it is getting more difficult to find rentals that people can afford to live in. Rents continue to rise. People facing eviction who have been renting a house for a number of years at a reasonable rent are suddenly being evicted. This is, perhaps, because the person who owns the house had it as their retirement policy. That is fine and they want to sell the house and enjoy their retirement. Perhaps the owner has a family member who needs a home. Whatever the reason is, when those families are evicted they have nowhere to go. Rents rose by 4.5% again in the first three months of the year. Cavan is one of six counties that has double-digit rent inflation on last year, at 10.6%. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is €1,245. I was contacted by a person looking for a rental property. An unfurnished two-bedroom apartment in a rural area of the county was advertised at €1,100 but when the person inquired, they were told it was €1,750 unless someone is in receipt of the accommodation recognition payment, ARP. Why would this amount of money be charged for a two-bedroom unfurnished apartment in the middle of rural Cavan? Why would it be advertised falsely as being for €1,100? As someone said to me, the situation is causing huge resentment and division in communities. People feel they are being treated differently depending on what supports they qualify for. The person went on to say that, regardless of nationality or background, the reality is the housing system is failing everyone trying to rent privately, and I absolutely agree. There are 1,157 people on the housing list in Cavan at the moment. Most of them have to wait years before they are housed by the local authority. They have to rent privately. They get the assistance of HAP but they cannot find a landlord who will accept HAP. They end up moving in with parents, accessing emergency accommodation or leaving the country. Those who are over the threshold for social housing but do not earn enough to get a mortgage are completely caught. They have no support whatsoever and they cannot find somewhere to rent they can afford. They are faced with moving in with their parents or leaving the country. We need a lot more social housing and a lot more affordable housing on a large scale. The Act that was sold to us came into being in March. We were told there would be short-term pain for long-term gain but people have been suffering for a long time. It is not short-term pain. They are already suffering and they cannot suffer any more. They cannot afford to pay colossal rents that continue to rise. What is the point of giving them security in a rental if they cannot afford it? Everyone should have tenure security but if they cannot afford to rent in the first place, there is absolutely no point. This is a never-ending cycle and we need some proper policies. We need a ban on no-fault evictions for a period of time until the Government gets its act together to provide sufficient social and affordable housing for the people of this country. --- 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