Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-18
============================================================

Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank Deputy Doherty for his question and I thank the Oireachtas committee on housing for its work. The committee report published this morning makes 14 recommendations. Of course, we will work our way through the report and consider all of the recommendations, as we do with all committee reports.
Page 5 of the report states that these committee recommendations arise from hearings held on 16 December last year. A number of decisions and actions have been taken by Government since then. As I look through the recommendations, I am pleased to say that many are in train or in place. The report calls for a greater focus on prevention and for increased funding, which we are providing. Very importantly, the committee recommends that the best interests of the child must be a key priority in addressing homelessness, and I believe everyone across the House can agree on that. We agree and that is why legislation is being brought forward to amend the Housing Act 1988 to ensure that consideration is given to the best interests of the child in the process of making decisions on accommodation for households. This is a key ask of many of those who work with homeless families across the country.
The report also seeks a child and family homelessness prevention plan. I am pleased to tell the House that this plan will be published before the summer recess. It is important work. We do not want to see anybody homeless in Ireland but we all particularly want to see progress made on children in homelessness. This plan is intended to drive a real focus on preventing children and families entering emergency accommodation while also providing enhanced supports for children who do experience homelessness. It will also include measures to accelerate exits and to reduce the time children and their families spend in homeless emergency accommodation. This was also a recommendation of the report.
The committee also recommends engagement with stakeholders. There has objectively never been more engagement but Government is always open to hearing any ideas from across this House as to what more could be done.
Since this committee hearing in December of last year, we have seen the legislation come into effect on 1 March 2026. That puts a range of protections in place in respect of tenancies. As the Deputy will know, we have extended the rent pressure zones nationwide. These now include the Deputy's own county of Donegal, which was previously not included. We brought in six-year tenancies. That is very important. We now live in a country where the majority of tenants are covered by an effective no-fault eviction ban. There was a debate in this House as to the right way to do that and there was debate about making sure that policies did not result in smaller landlords, those with one or two houses, leaving the market, causing a supply challenge. However, it is a statement of fact that there is now an effective no-fault eviction ban in place for the majority of tenants in the country. That also acts on a recommendation of the report.
We are also continuing a record level of investment in social housing, with €2.9 billion in capital allocated to support the delivery of social homes. We will continue to do that. The report is welcome. I take the Deputy's raising of the important issue of housing in the spirit intended. There is no more important domestic issue. However, it is not true to say that this cross-party report says that the Government should bring in a no-fault eviction ban. The cross-party report says "The Committee urges the Minister to keep all options under review including an emergency ban on no fault evictions". Of course, the Government keeps things under review. Let us not misrepresent the good cross-party work that was done in relation to this report.

---

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/dail/2026-06-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-18