The government’s Residential Tenancies Bill will push thousands more people into homelessness and make renting increasingly unviable, according to Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne.
Deputy Hearne, who is the party’s housing spokesperson, said:
“The government’s intention to ram through this cruel and deeply flawed piece of legislation tonight represents a complete capitulation to large investor funds and landlords. The overriding impact of this bill will be to allow record rents to skyrocket even further.
“Once this legislation goes through, it will result in rents for new tenancies being reset to market rates. What this means in reality is that people will see monthly rents for new tenancies rising to anything between €2,500 and €3,000 each month – that’s around €30,000 every year in after tax income that tenants will be expected to pay.
“What nurse, teacher, garda or retail worker can afford to pay rents at these rates? And what will happen to our critical public services when staff can’t afford to live in the towns and cities where they work?
“The only certainty from this bill is that thousands more adults and children will be condemned to a life of homelessness, with an entire generation stuck in their childhood bedrooms, forced to put their lives on hold.
“This bill ignores the human cost of removing inter-tenancy rent caps. Allowing rents to reset to market value will cause untold hardship and worsen our housing crisis.
“The Taoiseach today claimed the new rental measures are necessary to increase supply – so what he is basically saying is that the government is facilitating higher rents in order to incentivise supply.
“However, this is abstract market theory that completely ignores the human misery that will inevitably result from these measures.”
February 11, 2026