Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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James Browne (FF), Wexford

I thank the Deputies. We have been here for nearly three and a half hours debating the first amendment, but that is because there has hardly been a single discussion from the Opposition on the amendment. It has been referred to but most of the debate has not been on the amendment itself. Let us be honest: if the debate was simply on the amendment, we would have moved on a long time ago.
I want to address a number of issues. Deputy Ó Broin is using the RTB data for scaremongering.
Those were his projections from that data. I completely reject his conclusion. I do not know what his conclusions or projections are based on but they are certainly based on no change. We are going to drive supply. Everything I have done since becoming Minister for housing has been to address the housing crisis in this country, and I have always acknowledged there is a housing crisis in this country. Everything I have done is to try to address the housing crisis to get people into the homes they need, whether they are social, affordable or private, for rent or ownership, or for people in towns, villages, rural Ireland or inner cities. We have to solve that housing crisis, which is what everything I am doing is doing. How do we do that? One key to it is actually driving supply - yes, the right supply - but we have to drive the supply of homes. Another rent freeze and eviction ban are not going to drive any supply whatsoever. What they do is crystallise the lack of hope for everybody trying to get somewhere to live because they are never going to get a home to live in. We have to drive supply.
The situation at the moment is very temporary. We are now moving to permanent rent regulation in this country. We are giving certainty to tenants, landlords, investors and the State by bringing in a resolution to the rental situation in this country into the future. That is really important.
The security of tenure element has been ignored. These reforms will ensure that, for the first time, tenants will have security of tenure. They will have a minimum of six years. With a large landlord, they will have a tenancy for as long as they need it, which is crucial. That is not the case right now. They can be confident about not receiving that notice of termination. It allows people to put down roots and have that sense of security. The number one driver of homelessness is a notice to quit. Deputy Ó Broin is right, in that there is a churn of about every three and a half years, but this security of tenure will change that. The Deputy's pronouncements are made on a no-change basis but this will lengthen tenancies by giving that security of tenure to people. The major obstacle to security of tenure under existing regimes is that people can issue no-fault evictions. That will now come to an end for the majority of tenants and, for a minority of tenants, we are substantially restricting those opportunities and giving people at least six years. That is what is in here for tenants. Opposition Deputies have all referred to landlords. Most of the criticism of this Bill has come from landlords across right across the board.

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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