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LAST UPDATE | 19 May
A HEATED DÁIL debate tonight saw the government accused of causing the highest number of evictions since the Famine, as opposition parties sought to highlight the impact a reform of rental legislation has had on renters.
Sinn Féin brought a motion for debate that sought to introduce emergency bans on both rent increases and no-fault evictions.
Although the motion is not expected to succeed when TDs vote on it on Wednesday, it will further pressure the government over recent changes to the private rental sector.
It follows the release of new data from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) that eviction notices in the three-month period spanning January to the end of March were up 51% on the previous year.
Some 7,062 notices of termination were received by the RTB in the first three months of 2026. It’s the highest quarterly figure since the data series began.
The opposition has blamed the government’s recent reforms of the private rental sector for causing the spike in termination notices.
Under the sweeping changes, landlords can now reset rents to market rates when a tenancy has ended.
The government took the move as a way to entice investment in the sector to revive supply of accommodation, but there are fears it has caused spiking rents and major stress for families who now face eviction.
Speaking to during the debate tonight, Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the figures were a clear sign that the government’s new rental rules that came into play on 1 March were acting against tenants.
“We now have the highest number of evictions since the Famine,” Ó Broin said.
This claim is based on recent data from the RTB showing that there were approximately 20,033 notices of termination issued in 2025. Meanwhile, a recent FactCheck article found that there were around 20,000 evictions in 1850.
Ó Broin further claimed that the government had done “such a bad job at explaining what were incredibly complex issues” in its rent reforms that it led to an accelerated number of landlords handing out eviction notices.
Defending the government’s record, Housing Minister James Browne said that a ban on both no-fault evictions and rent increases would “act as a disincentive to landlords” to enter the market, and as a spur for others to leave the sector entirely.
The Fianna Fáil TD said the opposition’s discussion of the issue does not represent the efforts made to date, as he pointed to improvements in social and affordable housing numbers.
Browne added that the government had taken “record levels of preventions” against homelessness and would also make sure people can exit homelessness as quickly as possible.
The government has repeatedly defended its move by pointing to the need to boost supply, which in turn it hopes will eventually lower prices.
Back on the opposition side of the chamber, Labour’s housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan told TDs that the type of supply the government talks about as an incentive for developers is a “small number of high yield expensive buy to let luxury developments”.
The Limerick TD said these would be found in Dublin’s Docklands and Sandyford, but “certainly not in Limerick where there as a 12.6% rent increase, not in Galway either where there was a 9.9% rent increase” under recent figures.
Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne told the Dáil chamber that the approximately 20,000 evictions over the past year was an example of how the current government is among the “cruellest and most callous” since the foundation of the State.
The Dublin Northwest TD criticised inaction on the rising evictions, claiming that “not an eyelid is bat, not an intervention is made” to ease the crisis.
Referring to the number of evictions being as high as the time of the Famine, Hearne added: “That was then when we were under a colonist government – this is our own government.”
Hearne further raised the example of tenants who are in rent shares, but have found themselves told in recent months that they can’t replace the tenant who leaves. The practice has arisen at apartment complexes in Dublin, as per reporting by The Journal last month.
The Social Democrats TD said this situation makes a mockery of the claim that “no existing tenants would be affected” by the rental changes, as it means the remaining tenant must either pay the full rent for the apartment, enter a new contract shifting them into the new rules, or leave the tenancy.
But, Hearne added, the latter choice would mean “it will be recorded as voluntary but of course it’s not.”
The recent RTB data also showed a nationwide increase in existing rents of 4.4%, and 5% for new tenancy agreements in the final three months of 2025.
The average rent for new tenancies reached €1,755 in this period. Average rent for existing tenancies rose to €1,503.
It means that on average, sitting tenants pay €252 less per month than new tenants.
Ó Broin said these increased rental prices predate the new regulations, “which will see rents, evictions and disputes increase over the coming year”.
Within its motion, Sinn Féin is calling on the government to introduce an “emergency ban on rent increases and no-fault evictions”, and to oppose rent increases for council tenants, those in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), and the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), and cost-rental tenants.
The motion also calls for the government to cut private rents by putting a “full month’s rent back into every private renter’s pockets”.
People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett expressed support for a ban on no-fault evictions and the imposition of “serious rent controls”.
He said the “new phenomena” he is seeing from constituents is evictions on the grounds of overcrowding.
“It’s bad enough you’re overcrowded, but now you’re going to be evicted and made homeless because you’re overcrowded, and that is allowed under the legislation.
“It’s being done because the landlord knows they can increase the rent by a huge margin because of the legislation the government has passed,” he continued, calling the rise in evictions a “disgrace”.
Labour’s housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan also expressed concern over the RTB figures today.
He criticised the rental changes, brought in by Browne, as being “designed to stimulate a small amount of high-end, expensive, build-to-rent apartments in high-yield areas propagated by institutional investors”.
The cost-rental model, where rents are set 25% below market level, also needs to be looked at, Sheehan said.
“Cost rental is absolutely vital for the cohort of people that are growing who don’t qualify for social housing support because they earn too much, but cannot access a mortgage because of either their age or the fact that they just do not have the requisite finance there to access a deposit or buy a home in the area in which they want to live,” Sheehan said.
With reporting by Eoghan Dalton
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