Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14 ============================================================ Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel Amendment No. 18 seeks to insert a reasonableness ground into the social housing appeals process outlined in the new section 20B, to be inserted into the housing Act 2009 by this Bill. In our view, the internal appeals mechanism does not go far enough but if the Minister is insistent on going ahead with that internal appeals mechanism, a reasonableness ground needs to be included. As it stands, under section 20B(4), a household can only apply on one of the limited and specific grounds listed, and there is no residual ground covering a decision that is unreasonable on its facts. In our view, this needs to be corrected to ensure that the appeals process is fit for purpose. --- 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