Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ Maria McCormack (SF), Labour Panel I thank the Minister for coming in. I note that the aim of this Bill is to take the current eligibility criteria for social housing and put them on a statutory footing, and to create a new appeals mechanism for those refused access to social housing. Sinn Féin is not against this Bill in principle, but it must be said that the Minister has made a bit of a mess of this legislation and, on that basis, we cannot support it. The Bill does not adequately address the challenges facing returning Irish migrants. We are concerned that they may be refused access to social housing. The Minister should find a way to ensure that young people and their families returning to Ireland, who once lived here, are not punished by this legislation. This is really concerning. Another issue is that the appeals mechanism is not independent. Given the complex legal issues involved in appeals such as legal residency, habitual residency and social housing support, it would have been better to have a single, independent appeals office located in the Housing Agency similar to how social welfare appeals operate. On Report Stage in the Dáil, the Minister also introduced significant changes to the Housing Act 1988 related to homelessness with virtually no scrutiny. It is not the right way to do things. Homelessness NGOs and human rights organisations have expressed serious concerns regarding these last-minute changes, saying they could lead to an increase in rough sleeping. Sinn Féin is also concerned that people who may have had an entitlement to emergency accommodation could be wrongly denied it and will not be afforded the right to appeal. I want to discuss the impact this will have for people living in County Laois, in particular, the issues relating to homeless accommodation. County Laois has very little homeless accommodation, particularly for families. Every week, I talk to women and couples who have been sent with their children to counties Carlow or Tipperary to access emergency accommodation. They have to travel back to Laois every morning for school, to attend doctor appointments or to carry out their normal daily activities. If transport is not available, they are sent miles away from any supports they have in their community. It is causing a huge amount of additional stress on top of the fact that they are already homeless and completely stressed. It causes isolation and can have a detrimental impact on the mental health of parents and older children who are homeless. It is particularly difficult for young children, who cannot integrate into after-school activities, such as GAA activities and so on. I ask the Minister if Laois can be considered for funding for homeless hubs in the near future or, at the very least, if Laois County Council can be provided with funding to acquire additional properties for homeless accommodation in the county. It is scandalous that families have to go through this. The late Stage amendments in the Dáil also included changes to the Residential Tenancies Board to remove tenancy rights from people renting freestanding residential extensions in back gardens. While Sinn Féin wants flexibility in the planning rules to allow families to provide freestanding extensions in back gardens for family members, we do not support allowing these structures to be rented out, nor do we support denying people tenancy rights and protections when they are renting them out. I know, from talking to families in Laois, that they are just waiting for the green light to put a cabin in their back garden for their adult children to have space and independent living. This will be very welcome in rural Ireland. However, we need to be sure that what was intended to be a helpful solution for families does not turn into a crisis of exploitation of vulnerable tenants by landlords, who will do whatever they can to make a extra few bob at the expense of people in desperate need of accommodation. I ask the Minister to consider the issue of tenancy rights. If that were included, it would make it a very different situation because landlords could not exploit this rule. I wish the Minister would take the time to listen to the NGOs, housing charities and groups and their concerns before rushing through legislation on such an important issue. I refer especially to those organisations that have the legal expertise to tease out some of the complexities of the interaction of immigration and housing law, which have been ignored. It is not right. For the reasons I have mentioned, we cannot support the Bill. However, if the Minister can come back and review those issues regarding better safeguards for tenancies, we might be in a different position. --- 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/2026-07-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:11+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-09