Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

We have the key of it there. The Minister referred to "public and political scrutiny". This is performative. It is already the case that those who are not meeting long-term residency requirements are not getting social housing. Despite memes you might see online or messages that tell you they are, they are not. That has already been the policy. We are now saying it again. It seems that it is a response to messaging. "Public and political scrutiny" was the Minister's rationale. Is the concern that the Government will not look tough enough? That is what it means. The Minister referred to "public and political scrutiny". People will say that the Government is not being hard enough in making sure that people are not getting social housing when they are not habitually resident. That is already the case. The Government wants to be seen to do this.
That is what it looks like. It seems the message it is trying to send is that we are very hard on this issue. The Minister is almost conceding the idea that there was a proclaimed problem, which there was not, by saying we are tackling the issue even though it was not an issue. We are tackling that problem that does not exist, thereby giving an imprimatur of credibility to a false accusation being made. By saying we are solving a problem when it was not, the Minister is agreeing it is a problem. That is what I was saying. It was already the case, and social housing is a different thing from emergency housing accommodation.
By the way, I should have mentioned that the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, Free Legal Advice Centres and others have highlighted very specific gaps in respect of that emergency housing piece for those who are victims of trafficking, where there are particular obligations under law that they should be able to access supports in a continuous way and with minimum disruption. Those victims of trafficking will now be on the night-by-night phone call, as well as victims of sexual abuse and violence who may find themselves seeking emergency accommodation. That is just a reminder. That is the extra terrible thing that is being added in, and this is something the Minister is pretending to do, while already doing it. It is not without consequence if you try to send a signal that we are addressing an issue, and the Government implies an issue existed when it did not. It was already the practice that residency was a requirement. This is disingenuous and possibly dangerous.

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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