Ivana Bacik: Rent reforms sparked eviction tsunami

I'd like to welcome Austin Appleby and his family. Austin you've inspired us all with your immense courage, well done. Taoiseach, in March reports emerged of mass evictions across the country as a result of your new Fianna Fáil rent law. When I raised this with you then you told me that the facts did not bear out any connection, but the latest figures from the RTB, the Residential Tenancies Board, confirm exactly what we previously warned you about. Your botched rental so-called reforms have indeed triggered what has now become a wave of evictions. In the first three months of this year alone more than 7,000 eviction notices were issued, a 50% increase from last year Taoiseach. These figures should not come as a shock, they're the inevitable consequence of your government's policies. You gave private landlords a year's notice that they could jack up rents but only if they got rid of existing tenants before the end of March and families and children are suffering as a result. Threshold have supported more than 10,000 households in the first three months of this year alone, that's 3% of all households in the private rented sector in just 12 weeks. Taoiseach, behind every notice to quit is a person or family living in utter fear. Out in Galway and Dublin over recent weeks I've met renters in tears, wondering where they will go next. Like the family I met in Cabra, two parents both working, two teenage children. They've spent the last 18 months in cramped conditions at a homeless hub because they simply can't find anywhere to rent or to buy. I've spoken before about our Labour representatives experience of meeting renters contemplating suicide because their situation is so utterly desperate. People need hope Taoiseach and they need government action to resolve the housing crisis. But what action have you taken? You rushed deeply flawed legislation through, you guillotined the debate, you ignored multiple amendments from Labour's Conor Sheehan and from other opposition parties and you literally scoffed at us in this chamber when we warned that this measure was effectively an incentive to evict and amnesty on rent hikes. The Taoiseach even told me that the measure actually, in his words, protects renters. But what kind of protections are these? For renters who've already endured more than a decade of failure from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael where rents have more than doubled in 10 years and this before the full impact of your market reset and rent hikes to come. Taoiseach you said at the weekend that the defining challenge of our time is to give hope to young people that they can find an affordable home. But your policies are leading to thousands of young people now being evicted from their homes. You've achieved the highest level of eviction since the famine, the highest level of child homelessness ever and you've nothing to offer renters. Unlike you, we have put forward constructive proposals. We've published legislation for an emergency three-year eviction ban. So I'm asking you, will you support Labour's bill and will you intervene to stop the tsunami of evictions and keep children out of homelessness? Thank you Deputy. First of all again Deputy, I don't accept the full presentation because you're being somewhat disingenuous. Your attack on the rent reforms, which by the way the whole reform of that was advised in the first instance by the Housing Commission and you urged us to implement the recommendations of the Housing Commission. That's the first point and it did need to be reformed. And the reforms have added protection to tenants and one of the outcomes of that is, in terms of those who are objecting to the six years, that some landlords opted out. But there's always a churn in terms of tenancies and landlords and so on. And there's a higher number, over 13,000, who've actually entered into the market. So as some people exit the market, more enter the market. And it needed to be sorted, it needed to be solidified as well. And you know that. But your objection was, you try to portray it as an incentive to developers and landlords. In fact, it's the protection elements of the reforms that have caused some smaller landlords perhaps to exit. And you can't have it both ways. You can't have it both ways. And you do need to have a set landscape out to the next decade or so in terms of the investment side of the equation to get more in. And the bottom line is this, that 36,000 homes were delivered last year. That's the highest since records began. That's up 20% on the 2024 year. And a total of 38,000 new dwellings were completed in the 12 months ending Q1 2026. That's an increase of 26 year on year. And since 2020, about 177,000 units have been built. Planning momentum is now very strong. 8,000 permissions in Q4 2025, up close to 20%. 20,000 houses granted permission in 2025, highest since 2009. And 8,400 commencement notice in Q1 2026. That's up 184% year on year. Real dwelling investment is up 19.4% in the first three quarters of 2025. Construction employment is at 191,900 at the end of 2025. That's up 30% since 2019 and 12% year on year. The HBFI loan book grew 25% in 2025. We've allocated 1 billion to the Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund. Residential planning permissions in Dublin now exceed 78,000 units. 24,246 apartments are under construction or on active sites across Dublin. 15 new schemes active during Q1 of this year alone. And in total, 31,936 homes were either built or under construction across 202 active sites in 2026 quarter one. That is evidence of very significant momentum within the housing area. And supply is the key. And both on social, affordable, cost friendly increases are happening across the board. Deputy Batchick. Well Tisha, with respect, what I've heard from you just now is Alice in Wonderland logic. Michal in Wonderland logic. You tell me that you've introduced protections for renters and that these have somehow generated evictions. So which is it? You've made claims about construction figures that I think you need to go back and look at again. You've used the word churn. That's deeply hurtful to those families, like the family I've described to you, like the family I met in Arranmore, like families we're all meeting all the time. And Tisha, I hear that you're telling members of your own parliamentary party that you're getting a wonderful response on the doors in the by-election. But you must know that's not the case. That's more Alice in Wonderland thinking. Because all across the country, all of us who are constituency TDs are hearing from people who are desperately hurt, who are in fear, who are getting notices to quit and have nowhere to go. And the figures speak for themselves and the stories behind the figures speak for themselves Tisha. No matter how much you try to spin it, no matter how much you lecture me about churn in this house, you said it in March, you're saying it again now, it's simply not the case. First of all Deputy, people enter the market, people leave the market on a continuous basis and have, you know that, that's just a fact. But the bottom line is you can't spin away either and pretend nothing is happening in terms of housing supply. Because over 9,000 social houses were built last year, direct builds, again which the state funded. And the housing is the number one issue facing the people in the country. Our population has grown, our population has grown exponentially. And if you dig deep under the demographics and the population, you can see the impact on the pressures on the housing situation because of the different parts of that demographic story. I can deal with that at a later time. But we now need to increase housing supply, housing supply. And that's what the government is focused on. Right, in a whole range of initiatives that we've introduced from social housing, to cost rental, to affordable housing. Now, you know, the significant number of drawdowns for first-time buyers, for example, is much higher than it would have been back in 2015, when the percentage of first-time buyers had been 26% of all household buyers. It's now 40% in 2020. Time is up. Deputy Holly Kearns. Thank you Taoiseach. Deputy Holly Kearns. Taoiseach, time is up. Deputy Holly Kearns.