Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

What an utter shambles. In my entire time in Dáil Éireann, I have never witnessed a more haphazard, ramshackle, back-of-the-envelope process for putting in place widespread reforms that are going to impact tens of thousands of people. While I understand Ministers and Ministers of State have to come here and defend this farce, privately they must be absolutely reeling. The credibility of the Government's housing policy has once again been exposed as an absolute sham. Only five months into the job, the Minister's own credibility has been badly damaged. This is not just my view. Listen to what the industry, media and commentators are saying. In fact, some of the Minister's own backbenchers were being quoted in the newspapers last weekend. I have to say this is an incredibly sorry tale.

With the greatest of respect to the Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, speaking in defence of the hard-pressed renters in County Cork, the failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael since 2020 to do anything to protect the renters he represents has seen their rents increase by a staggering 60%. We are now looking at new rents in the Minister of State's county being €7,270 more expensive per year now than when the parties formed a coalition. I do not think renters in County Cork, especially outside the RPZs, will be thanking them for their inaction over all these years. As each day has unfolded since the leaks began the weekend before last, we have seen confusion, consternation, contradiction and widespread fear and anxiety among the tens of thousands of renters across this State.

When the Minister launched the policy last Tuesday, it was clear from the words coming out of his mouth and in print in his press release that the ability of landlords to reset rents to the full market level would apply to all tenancies from March 2026. When he was exposed on the floor of the Dáil the Taoiseach was left reeling from the Minister's incompetence and only then did he change the plan. Likewise, there was no mention of students when he launched these proposals on 10 June. There was no mention from his officials during the technical briefing given to the media. Again, it was only when it was highlighted that students would be some of the first and worst hit that the Minister scrambled around to fix the issue. He cannot even agree with his own party colleague, the Minister, Deputy James Lawless, on what level of additional protections may or may not be given to students. This shows that the Minister does not understand the legislation. He signed up to a package without any consideration of its impact on the vast majority of renters, leaving his backbenchers and having to defend what is utterly indefensible.

Let us look at the package as a whole because today's Bill, which I will come to shortly, is only part of a wider package. Let us call it by its name. It is the Fianna Fáil rent hike Bill. This is Micheál Martin, who initiated this process and pulls the strings of his Minister, jacking up the rents for tens of thousands of hard-pressed renters from March 2026 onwards. What is being done is not constructing a careful balance between landlords and tenants or introducing a comprehensive, State-wide rent protection regime. Rather, the rent pressure zone legislation introduced in 2016 is being dismantled over time. These were protections that were incredibly weak in the first place. Nobody will believe any attempt to present this as anything else. Universally, almost all the coverage, from journalists, commentators and industry, has accepted the simple, central fact of this proposal, which is that it is going to result in rent increases, in many cases at a more accelerated rate than would have otherwise happened. It appears that Fianna Fáil's solution to rising rents is to keep those rents rising.

Worse than that, in respect of new rental stock, from the start of next year, the Government is going to peg annual rent reviews to inflation, which will drag overall new rents up even faster. Market rent resets for new tenants in first-time tenancies will accelerate at an even greater rate. This is being done on the promise of increased institutional investment in high-end, high-density, private rental sector investment. That investment will not be delivered in Cork, and certainly not in west Cork. It will not be delivered in the constituencies of the Minister or the Minister of State.

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