When Jonathon Corrie died just meters away from Leinster House, the country went into a state of shock. His death became a stark symbol of a housing system in crisis, one that was failing its most vulnerable members. That was in 2014. In the years since, that crisis has only deepened, and the effects are seen not just by societies’ most vulnerable but by average families trying to stay afloat, young couples attempting to build a life, and students seeking an education. Rents have surged to record highs, supply has consistently lagged behind demand, and the phrase ‘housing crisis’ has become so entrenched in our vocabulary that it has almost lost meaning.
Nowhere is the crisis more acutely visible than in Ireland’s private rental sector. Rents in this sector have climbed steadily over the past decade, with many tenants now spending a disproportionate share of their income simply to keep a roof over their heads. On the first of March this year, new rental laws came into effect in Ireland under the Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2026. Framed as a necessary recalibration to encourage supply and stabilise the rental sector, the new rules have ignited significant debate, with critics warning these new regulations will deepen inequality and push rents even further out of reach.
The largest change from the new law concerns Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs). Introduced in 2016 in response to spiralling rents and rising homelessness, rent pressure zones capped rent increases at 2% annually (or inflation, whichever was lower) in areas with high rents and rapid rent increases. Roughly half of the country, including all of Dublin, was in an RPZ at the beginning of last year. Crucially, this cap was linked to the property rather than the tenant. This meant that landlords could not simply reset rent to market levels when a tenant moved out. This, at least in theory, ensured that rents in communities facing rental pressure remained relatively stable.
Under the new rules, the entire country has become part of a single large rent pressure zone. But this has come with changes to renter protections. All tenancies created on or after March 1st, 2026, except for new apartments and student-specific accommodation (SSA), will be subject to the 2% annual rent hike cap (or inflation, whichever is lower). This cap will be tied to the tenancy rather than the property.
Previously, under Part IV of the Residential Tenancies Act, tenants gained security of tenure after 6 months of renting a property. Within the first 6 months, a landlord may terminate a tenancy for a wide variety of reasons, provided they give adequate notice. After those 6 months, the tenancy became a Part IV tenancy, which, from 2022, lasted indefinitely and could only be terminated for limited grounds. These included: a breach of the tenant’s obligations, where the dwelling is no longer suitable for the tenant, the landlord intends to sell the property, the landlord requires the dwelling for their own use or that of a family member, for substantial refurbishment, or to change the use of the dwelling.
Under the new legislation, landlords are divided into two categories: small landlords who hold three or fewer rental properties, and large landlords who hold four or more. Your rights as a tenant now vary based on the type of landlord you have. Renters with Large Landlords will now be legally protected from ‘no-fault evictions.’ This means they can evict you only if you are not meeting your legal obligations, such as paying rent, or if the property is no longer suitable for your needs. Small landlords will still be able to evict tenants if they need to sell to avoid undue financial or other hardship, or if the landlord or a close family member needs to live in the property.
Rather than holding an indefinite tenancy after 6 months, tenancies will now last a 6-year cycle. At the end of the cycle, landlords, large and small, will be able to terminate the tenancy if they or a family member need to live in the property, sell it, substantially refurbish or renovate it, or change its use. This means that for 6 years, tenants will have stronger legislative protections than before.
This restructuring comes with a catch for tenants: the introduction of “market reset” provisions. While all tenancies will be subject to the 2%/inflationary rent-hike cap, this cap will reset at the end of the 6-year cycle. Landlords will be able to adjust the rent to ‘market rate’ after every 6-year cycle and when a new tenancy begins (provided the last tenancy ended because the tenant left by choice, breached their obligations or if the property no longer suits their needs). Landlords will not be able to reset the rent for a tenancy that ended through a ‘no-fault’ eviction.
While the bill has been framed as a positive for renters, with new protections for tenants, these benefits are outweighed by landlords’ ability to reset rents to market conditions. It fundamentally alters the purpose of those controls altogether. RPZs were originally introduced to shield tenants from the volatility of the open market. Volatility created by a worsening crisis where rental prices have increased, availability has decreased, and wages have far from kept up. By allowing periodic returns to that same market, the new rules risk undermining the very protections they were designed to provide. What value is security of tenure if people cannot afford the rent?
But the government claims these new regulations will address the housing shortage. Central to its argument is the belief that the previous RPZ system, by linking rent caps to the property rather than the tenancy, actively discouraged investment in the rental sector. By allowing rents to realign with market conditions, the government argues that landlords will be more willing to remain in the sector. At the same time, new investors will be incentivised to enter it. Over time, this is expected to increase the overall supply of rental accommodation, easing pressure on prices. It’s the basic principle of supply and demand.
However, this Junior Certificate economics exercise doesn’t reflect the reality of the Irish housing market. The idea that investors must be incentivised with ever-rising rents ignores the fact that, in Ireland, demand already far exceeds supply, and rents reflect that. The issue was never a lack of profitability in the rental sector, and if it were, then how are the Irish people to believe that rents will ever stabilise when the supply increases? If investors aren’t seeing enough profitability now, they surely won’t in a world with a stable supply of housing. If the solution to the crisis depends on maintaining high or rising rents to attract developers, it risks entrenching the very affordability issues it seeks to address. In this sense, the policy is circular: rents must rise to incentivise supply, but rising rents are precisely the problem the system is meant to fix.
Even if these measures do succeed in attracting investment, the construction of new housing, particularly large-scale apartment developments, takes years. For those currently in the rental market, this offers little immediate relief. Instead, tenants will face rising rents now, in exchange for a promise of increased supply at some undefined point in the future. This is no secret. Put simply, unless the housing market crashes, tenants’ rents are going to rise for the foreseeable future.
Rent does not function like a typical supermarket commodity, where you can go to the shop down the road because the milk is 50 cents cheaper. You need a roof over your head, and you’ll spend whatever it takes for it. That is why housing markets are regulated and why the RPZ system exists. Otherwise, it gives landlords free rein to squeeze tenants for as much as possible. What happens when these tenants cannot pay this rent? There is a limit to how much you can cut on food and other essentials, and for many renters, the new rent hikes will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When renters cannot pay their rent, they are evicted.
For students who are renting, the situation looks particularly bad. In cases of student-specific accommodation, the rental reset can occur only once every 3 years, given the high tenant turnover in student accommodation. Due to the shortage of purpose-built student accommodation, many students rent in the private sector, where this exemption does not apply. Standard private accommodation leasing to students, who typically need only 10-month leases, will allow rents to be reset to market rate each time a tenant voluntarily leaves. Students in this situation may see year-on-year rent hikes above the 2% rate.
The question has to be asked: Who benefits from this? Because it is clearly not current renters whose leases are not affected by the provisions, it’s not students, a large number of whom rent on the private market and could face yearly “market rate’ hikes, it’s certainly not the recent graduate, living at home, looking to move out finally. The answer is simple: Investors. Earlier this year, Ireland’s largest landlord, Ires Reit, told investors that the changes could see rental income increase by 25%. Meanwhile, ordinary tenants continue to shoulder the cost, facing rising rents, while the reforms reward those already profiting from a broken system.
Over a decade on from Jonathon Corrie’s death, the housing crisis is far from resolved. In February, over 17,300 people were in emergency accommodation. If anything, with this recent legislation, we’re more likely to see that number rise than fall.