Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Thomas Gould (SF), Cork North-Central

As I listened to some of the other speakers, I thought about some of the comments the Minister made at the housing committee and in this Chamber. I just do not get it. The Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, are intelligent people. We have seen the housing crisis go from a crisis to an emergency. We know that homelessness is off the charts and homelessness is only recorded as people living in emergency accommodation. It does not include the people who are living with three or four generations in the same home. It does not include the hidden homeless, the true figure that is there.
When the Minister and Minister of State look at the homelessness figures and the housing crisis and see house prices, rents and evictions going up, do they really, in their heart of hearts, believe that this Bill is going to solve that? I do not believe they could, if they are the intelligent men I believe them to be.
The Minister and Minister of State inherited an unbelievable housing emergency and they are desperate to find solutions. The big investment companies, the big speculators and the vulture funds came in and produced a document for the Government that they claimed would deliver housing. It will not.
The only way to solve the crisis is through supply. It is by building social and affordable housing. Think of all the people who are living in HAP and RAS properties in the private rental market. If the Government delivers social and affordable housing and takes those people out of the private market, that frees up all the rental accommodation then for the renters who badly need it.
I talked to a couple of people over the weekend. They said to me that this is so cruel. They might not feel the consequences on 1 March, but they will in the future. They are terrified because their rents are too high already. Their rents are through the roof. They are struggling to hang on. I talked to a girl who is college educated. She has a child. She can just about afford the rent. What happens when she cannot afford it? Will the Minister answer that question? What happens when her rent resets to the market value and she cannot afford it? This is a person with a good job and a good education who does everything right. What happens to her? Where is the support? This lady will not qualify for HAP or RAS. Do you know what she told me? She said that nearly all her friends are in the same position. They are renting. They cannot get mortgages because the price of housing is so high. The price of housing is so high because the Government did not build houses for years. It left it to the market. The Government has a fascination with the idea that the market will solve the problem.
Fine Gael came up with this solution after the financial crash. Fianna Fáil should have learned from the financial crash that the one thing we cannot rely on to sort out problems in housing and health is the market. The major problems must be sorted out by government. Rents are not just unaffordable. They are crippling families. Some people will not be able to move for six years as a consequence of this legislation because, if they move, they know they will pay the new market rent wherever they go.
I talked to people who live together even though their relationships have broken up because they have nowhere to go. I have been contacted by women who are in abusive relationships, either physical or mental.
Where do they go with their kids? I have helped families in Cork to access emergency accommodation and then, within a couple of weeks, they are asked to leave because there is no capacity for them. There are consequences. When I became a TD I was told, "Thomas, you must always be aware of the unintended consequences". There are so many negative consequences to this legislation that the Minister is either not considering or he does not get.
It is not only me who is saying this. We were all in at the housing committee, including the Minister and Minister of State, and all the experts told us that rents, evictions and homelessness will increase. What will also increase is profit for the big investment funds, vulture funds and speculators. They look at Ireland and see a place where they can make a profit. It goes back to "greed is good". The Government's job is to protect people and ensure they have a safe place to live and raise their families.
The amendments call for a review and a report. The one thing I have learned since I came up here is to follow the science and the data. Figures do not lie, and what the figures have said here is that this Bill will have a catastrophic effect on rents and drive them through the roof. They are already too high.
I spoke with a lady who is on a disability payment and receiving the housing assistance payment, HAP. The only way she can keep the roof over her head is that every month, her retired father gives her money. Her rent is so high that HAP is not enough. She is on a disability payment and only for her dad, she would be homeless. I know another family in the same position. I was talking to a man who explained to me that his brothers are helping him out with the rent. He had lost his home because the property where he was living was being sold. The family had no choice but to take whatever accommodation there was. The cost of that accommodation is so high that they cannot afford it and he is being supported by his family. What will happen when, as a consequence of this Bill, rents are driven higher?
There is so much more I could say but my colleagues have touched on a lot of it. We all make mistakes in life. There but for the grace of God go all of us. The Government has made a mistake. Security of tenure for six years would be a positive step if it did not allow market rents to drive so many people out. People watching this debate realise what will happen as a consequence of this Bill finally being passed. The worry I have is the people out there tonight who do not know what the Government is doing and who will only realise the consequences of this legislation in the weeks, months or years to come. People will be left terrified and without hope.
The Government cannot sort out all the problems but what the Minister and Minister of State can do is give people hope. This Bill will not give people hope. It will give profits to the rich and super-rich and will drive ordinary working people into the hands of moneylenders. What happens when people go to moneylenders and they cannot pay the money back? Where do they go? What happens when they borrow from family and friends and that money runs out? Where do they go?
The Bill is a mistake. The Government is following the lobbyists and it is time to step back. We will work with the Government. I will leave the Minister and Minister of State with this. We will work with the Government to bring forward a Bill that will deliver housing and rents that are affordable and that will make a change for people. We can all commit to that but not to this Bill.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-11