Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Conor Sheehan (LAB), Limerick City

If the Minister is not going to accept amendment No. 9, I plead with him to accept amendment No. 38. This amendment proposes to amend the table in section 34 of the 2004 Act, which sets out the ground for the termination of a tenancy. The ground specified in paragraph four of the table is that "the landlord requires the dwelling or the property containing the dwelling for his or her own occupation or for occupation by a member of his or her family". In my view and in the opinion of many people, this provision is much abused. This amendment proposes a balancing exercise that use for a family member should not be a ground for evicting a tenant if the tenant would be placed at risk of homelessness. Politics is about choices. The choice the Minister is making is going to increase homelessness. That is a fact. It is going to put rents up.
In relation to my other amendment, there was 35% surge in evictions after the moratorium was lifted. I am not arguing for a permanent eviction moratorium. I am arguing for a moratorium to give us some breathing space. We will not get to it, but this is in a similar vein to why I tabled an amendment in relation to a rent break if rents exceeded 15% within a three-year period. When the eviction moratorium was in place, family homelessness fell by 39%.
Like every Deputy and I am sure the Minister included, my constituency clinics are inundated with notices to quit. At this stage, I have over 100 notices to quit on the books in my office. I do not know what to tell people because in many cases they are being forced to leave their homes and if they are lucky, they will get emergency accommodation. Emergency accommodation in Limerick is often at capacity. On Monday, a man attended my clinic wondering how he would explain to his autistic child that the family were going to be made imminently homeless. Things have gotten so bad at this stage that all I am looking for with the first amendment is a breathing space and with the second amendment, to tighten up that provision to ensure that people are not being evicted on spurious grounds.

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Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-11