Sir,- The latest Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) figures, showing 7,062 notices of termination in the first quarter of 2026 alone, are not merely alarming – they are an indictment of years of catastrophic housing policy.
Anyone with even a modicum of understanding of the rental market could see this coming. Landlords repeatedly warned that endless regulation, political grandstanding, and punitive legislation would drive providers out of the sector. They were ignored, ridiculed or portrayed as villains. Now, the consequences are landing squarely on tenants.
The Irish rental market has been systematically destroyed by State interference, masquerading as compassion. Rent pressure zones, endless rule changes and an ever-expanding regulatory burden have produced exactly the opposite of what was promised – fewer properties, higher rents and greater insecurity.
Who has benefited? Not tenants desperately searching for accommodation. Not smaller landlords abandoning the market in frustration. The only institution that appears to have prospered is the RTB itself – an expensive bureaucracy presiding over an accelerating collapse while offering little meaningful protection or efficiency to either side.
RM Block
One piece of misguided legislation after another has left a smouldering wreck where a functioning rental market once existed. Yet, the political instinct remains the same – more intervention, more controls and more blame directed at those still providing accommodation.
Ireland does not have a landlord problem. It has a policy problem. – Yours, etc,
GEOFF SCARGILL,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
