Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Rory Hearne (SD), Dublin North-West

The Minister has still not answered a fundamental question that we asked. Based on the introduction of the Bill, when will rents stabilise? When will rents start reducing as a result of the Bill?
The Minister has not answered the question and it runs against all policy, which is supposed to be evidence-based policy, that he understands the consequences and impacts of a Bill but has not set out the core purpose, which is going to have significant social impact by resulting in rising rents. He accepts this but he will not set out when rents will fall as a result of this.
Again, the Minister has not set out or accepted how renters who are forced to or have to leave tenancies are going to pay higher market rents. How are they going to afford it? Where is the income going to come from? In the Minister's view, what is a sustainable or average rent? In the Minister's view, what should we be aiming for in terms of average rents? Maybe he could set that out. What does he think is a sustainable and appropriate national average rent?
The Minister needs to accept and make clear a point. While he stated that for the first time, he is introducing no-fault evictions, protection and security of tenure for renters, he is not introducing it for all existing renters. Can he at least have the honesty to state that he is introducing a form of security of tenure for new tenancies but that all existing tenants are still covered under the same situation whereby they can be evicted on a no-fault basis? That is a fundamental mistake with this Bill. Why will the Minister not accept our proposed amendment to extend no-fault evictions to all existing tenancies? In regard to the proposals and amendments we are putting forward, that is one of the core ones.

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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