Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14
============================================================

Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

Often, what we deem reasonable can look very different from where a person is looking at it. When one has privilege, access to healthcare, and his or her needs met fully, he or she can judge what is reasonable in a very different way than somebody who is in a very vulnerable situation. Reasonable for him or her can look very different. When a local authority offers somebody accommodation, like the example I used of an autistic young person and the fear around a high-rise building, that was seen as a refusal. That was registered by the local authority as “you have now refused one offer of accommodation, you have only two more and then you are going to have a period where you are not going to be offered anything.” People are already punished for giving very reasonable reasons as to why they might not take accommodation. I ask the Minister to consider having greater guidelines or insight as to, like I said, different people's ideas of what is reasonable and what is not. It can really look different depending on the life a person has had, his or her position, or what he or she is currently experiencing in his or her housing situation.

---

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/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:15+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14