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Legislation to extend RPZs across country

The Government says that legislation to extend the current rent-pressure zones (RPZs) to a nationwide system of rent controls is to be brought forward “in the coming weeks”. 

The move is part of a package of measures that the Government says is aimed at boosting supply and investment in the rental sector. 

The Department of Housing says that further changes to the RPZ system and improved protections for tenants will come into effect on 1 March 2026.

2% cap 

Under the proposals, there will be a national system of rent control, with rent increases for all tenancies capped by inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index).  

In times of high inflation, rent increases for most tenancies will be capped at a maximum of 2%, according to the department. 

Among the measures for tenants is the introduction of rolling six-year tenancies of minimum duration for smaller landlords (those with three or fewer tenancies) with restricted grounds for ending a tenancy. 

These limited circumstances are: 

• When such landlords face hardship, which will be defined in legislation, and
• Where they require the home for “an immediate family member”. 

Tenant obligations 

‘No-fault evictions’ for larger landlords (those with four or more tenancies) are to end. These landlords will not be able to end a tenancy where the tenant has complied with his or her obligations, except in very limited circumstances. 

All landlords will continue to have the right to terminate a tenancy where there is a breach of tenant obligations or where the dwelling is no longer suited to the needs of the tenant household. 

All landlords will also have the right to reset rent where the rent is below the market rate at the end of each six-year tenancy, unless a ‘no-fault eviction’ occurs. 

Landlords will be able to sell a property with tenant in situ at any time. 

‘Greater certainty’ 

Minister for Housing James Browne is to seek further Government approval, before the summer recess, for heads of a bill as a basis for the priority drafting of legislative amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 to provide for the changes. 

Minister Browne said that the measures would provide greater certainty for renters, while boosting the supply of new homes and retaining existing landlords in the market. 

“In order to stimulate investment and keep existing landlords in the market, it is proposed that the resetting of rents to market value for new tenancies will be allowed as part of the reform of rent controls. 

“To avoid the provision to reset rents leading to ‘economic evictions’ – where landlords seek to move tenants out so that they can charge a higher rent – it is intended that resetting rents will not be allowed for ‘no-fault’ evictions,” he stated. 

The proposals have already attracted criticism from opposition parties, with Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said that the measures would “enable landlords to hike up extortionate rents even further”. 

“Under your proposals, as one renter walks out the door, they will be replaced by another whose rent will have ballooned,” she said at Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil.