Government’s new legislation will deepen the housing emergency, warns Tipperary TD

Independent TD for Tipperary South, Seamus Healy,  has warned that the government’s 'Extortionate Rents Bill' will drive already unaffordable rents to even more extreme levels, locking tens of thousands of renters out of the housing market and worsening homelessness across the State.

Speaking on the Bill, Deputy Healy said the only guarantee it provides is that rents will increase from 1 March. Over a short period, he argued, this will push all rents to extortionate levels.

“This Bill is an outright attack on renters,” Deputy Healy said. “Some 60,000 renters will see their rents rise every year by anything up to €3,000 or €3,500. It will lock people out of the market and drive homelessness even higher.”

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Deputy Healy accused the government of writing legislation for the benefit of large corporate landlords and institutional investors, while ignoring the scale of the housing emergency facing ordinary people.

On 31 December, 16,734 people were homeless, which is an increase of 1,870 compared to the previous year. Of these, 5,188 were children, up by 678 since 2024.

“That is a scandal,” Deputy Healy said. “And this Bill will make matters worse.”

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He also pointed to the government’s continued failure to meet its own housing targets. This year, the target of 41,000 new homes was missed by more than 5,000 units.

“The housing emergency continues to undermine the very fabric of Irish society,” he said.

Deputy Healy argued that there is an alternative to the government’s failed approach, beginning with the declaration in law of a housing emergency.

“Housing is a human right,” he said, noting that it is enshrined in Article 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Housing Commission itself has acknowledged that the housing deficit must be addressed through emergency action, yet successive governments have failed to do so.

He pointed to the precedent of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts between 2011 and 2016 as evidence that emergency legislation is both possible and lawful.

A formal declaration of a housing emergency, he said, would require the state and all its agencies, including government departments, local authorities, approved housing bodies and utilities such as Irish Water and the ESB, to take coordinated emergency action.

Such an approach, Deputy Healy argued, would be consistent with both the spirit and the terms of Bunreacht na hÉireann and is the only realistic way to resolve the crisis.