Rent reform: Tenants and landlords alike are let down by new residential tenancies bill

Labour's housing spokesman says the the Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 will spook small landlords into leaving the market, while failing to protect tenants

'A system that cannot be clearly explained to tenants will not protect them in practice.' Stock picture

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are once again tinkering around the edges of a housing emergency while claiming to deliver reform.

To date, housing minister James Browne is presiding over record-breaking levels of homelessness, a legislative agenda that looks at planning permissions for back garden bedrooms alone, and tax breaks for developers while working people are priced out of the housing market entirely.

Its latest proposed changes are due to be implemented next month through the Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026, a suite of rental laws that are on track to become yet another mess of this Government’s own making. 

What Government is proposing will, in the short term, spook small landlords into leaving the market and, in the long term drive rents even higher.

All the while it will confuse tenants, landlords, and enforcement bodies alike.

The bill will rewrite rental rules in Ireland for the seventh time in the last decade — which tells a story of its own.

Limerick City TD and Labour housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

Constant churn in housing policy is creating enormous uncertainty for everyone in the market, driving instability, legal loopholes, and a system that nobody fully understands.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael say this bill aims to boost tenant security while encouraging increased institutional investment. That contradiction sits at the heart of the problem. The only certainty this bill delivers is that rents will rise further above the already insane levels people are facing today.

Deregulation presented as reform

Dressing deregulation up as reform will not change the reality for the thousands of renters who are being priced out of their homes and communities.

Rent pressure zones have already been extended nationwide but these new Government proposals effectively rip them up, potentially allowing landlords to reset rents to so-called market value between tenancies, rendering rent pressure zone protections largely ineffective.

At best, they become a temporary speed bump. At worst, they become meaningless.

This single decision will turbocharge rent inflation and amounts, in practice, to the deregulation of the private rental market.

Aspects of the bill are welcome...

Parts of the bill are welcome and introducing six-year tenancies of minimum duration for new tenancies is a positive step. Restrictions on no-fault evictions for larger landlords with four or more tenancies are also long overdue.

Linking rent increases to inflation is an improvement on the current chaos, even if it falls short of what is needed — Labour believe rents should be frozen to give people real breathing space.

...but the rest is incoherent 

But this is where the good news ends. The remainder of the bill mirrors the Government’s wider housing strategy. It is messy, incoherent, and internally contradictory.

Allowing rent resets between tenancies while claiming to protect affordability is policy nonsense. It guarantees higher rents and rewards churn. It is exactly what institutional investors have been calling for, and this Government is delivering it to them, wrapped up in a tangled web of complexity.

The failure to even limit rent resets to specific tenancy types exposes the truth. Government does not want meaningful rent controls. It wants to keep one foot in the language of protection, while the other foot kicks the door open to further marketisation.

New categories of landlord

The creation of new and differing categories of landlord only deepens the confusion. It is difficult to understand and will be even harder to enforce. 

Under these plans, we will have tenants under existing arrangements, new tenants of small landlords, and new tenants of larger landlords, all with different rights and levels of security.

A system that cannot be clearly explained to tenants will not protect them in practice.

Government continues to cling to the belief that supply alone will solve the housing crisis, but Vat cuts for apartment construction, reduced apartment standards, and deregulation of the rental market do not guarantee increased supply, they guarantee higher profits for developers and investors.

The only thing this bill truly guarantees is that rents will continue to rise until Government is forced to intervene again in two or three years’ time. Then the cycle will repeat.

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This bill will shape the rental market for years to come, and its consequences will be felt in every rent increase notice that lands on a kitchen table.

Housing is not an abstract market problem. It is about dignity, stability, and security. If Government continues to misrepresent deregulation with reform, renters will pay the price again and again.

We need decisive change of course, but change that delivers rent certainty, strong tenant protections and a housing system built around human need, not investor demand.

• Limerick City TD Conor Sheehan is the Labour Party's housing spokesperson