I rise to support the residential tenancies Bill 2026. I will begin by acknowledging the work of the Minister, Deputy Browne, and the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, in bringing forward this legislation, which tries to do something Ireland has struggled to do for far too long, that is, strike a fair balance between tenant protection and rental supply. I will say this clearly: we need that balance because the truth is that the system we currently have is not serving anybody properly. It is not serving the renters, who want security and certainty, and it is not serving landlords, who want clarity, fairness and a rental sector that is not constantly changing rules midstream. The Bill gets a number of things right. First, it introduces for the first time a national approach to rent regulation. Instead of the patchwork of rent pressure zones, we move to a more consistent, national framework where rent increases are linked to inflation using the consumer price index, CPI, and, critically, there remains a cap of 2% per annum to protect tenants during high inflation. Second, it strengthens tenant security through the introduction of rolling six-year tenancies of minimum duration for new tenancies, and that is being created from 1 March 2026. That is a major step in giving renters the stability that so many families are crying out for. Third, the Bill provides a pathway for new investment in supply, particularly in apartments, by linking rent increases for new apartments to inflation only, which is designed to support new building and attract investment into the sector. There is, therefore, a lot in the Bill to support. I support it because it is rooted in the reality we cannot ignore. If we do not grow supply, rents will remain high and pressure will remain unbearable. I also commend the Minister on recognising something many in this House have been slow to acknowledge, namely that a rental market where rents cannot be reset between tenancies becomes one that people exit. That is why the Bill provides for rent to reset to market rates in specific circumstances, particularly where tenancies have ended or between tenancies at the end of a six-year period while also putting safeguards in place to prevent economic evictions. That is the correct direction of travel. I also want to raise concerns that have been brought to my attention and that I am hearing repeatedly in my clinics in Galway East. I want to raise them honestly and frankly because these concerns are real. In my clinics, I meet people who are not corporate landlords, not vulture landlords or not large investors but ordinary people, such as a farmer who bought a small house years ago for retirement income, a couple with one rental property to support a mortgage or a widow who rents out a property to top up her pension. These are people who did what the State told them to do for decades.

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They invested, provided rental homes and helped supply. They are coming to me with one fear above all others. They are afraid they will lose control of their own property. Vacant possession matters. I want to put this plainly. It is absolutely right that tenants have security. It is absolutely right that we restrict no-fault evictions. It is also vital, however, that property owners can have vacant possession of their asset if they choose to sell, especially small landlords. For many small landlords, that property is not a business. It is their pension, their safety net, their retirement plan and their family's long-term security. While the Bill recognises that a property can be sold at any time with a tenant in situ, we have to be honest about what that means in practice. I want to raise a very practical point being raised with me again and again, which is that if small landlords are forced, in effect, to sell with tenants in situ, the valuation of their property will be crippled. This will be for two reasons. First, the buyer pool collapses, so if a property is sold with tenants in situ, it is no longer a home for a young couple to buy but only an investment asset. That means the only buyers are investors, which is a far smaller pool. Second, the properties become valued on yield. Here is the reality. For a small landlord with one property, after tax, maintenance, insurance and compliance costs, and after the risk that comes with the system, the yield is low. For large investment funds, however, the yield calculation is completely different. They can buy and sell portfolios at scale. They can spread costs. They have professional management, better financing and better tax structuring. We are creating, and I say this respectfully, a situation where the State risks pushing small landlords out while strengthening the position of large-scale corporate ownership. I think that would be the worst outcome. The Bill does recognise a distinction between small landlords and large landlords and that is welcome but I urge the Minister to be extremely careful that, in practice, we do not end up with a system where large landlords have disproportionate ownership of the rental market and small landlords face the same practical consequences but without the scale, resources or tax efficiency to survive it. If we lose the small landlord sector, we lose supply and flexibility in rural Ireland. From a rural Ireland perspective, if we lose the small landlords, they will not be coming back. We sometimes think institutional investment will step in and take their place but in these small towns, there is no institutional investment. No institutional investment is coming to east Galway. We are not going to see large apartment blocks. As a result, when a small landlord sells and gets out of the market, that rolling rental supply we depend on in our towns is going to be gone. These properties might be for somebody who needs one for a year, somebody who moves into an area to settle or a worker looking to relocate. These are all examples of people who need to rent in our areas and there will not be a rental supply if it is sold and gone.

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