Rent pressure zone now covers entire country as legislation rushed through

All people with existing tenancies, so long as they stay where they are, will only be faced with a 2pc annual rent rise, or the Consumer Price Index rate of inflation, whichever is the lower.

Confirmation that all renters are now covered came after the Seanad rushed all stages of the legislation today and it was sent immediately to Áras an Uachtaráin.

"Having received and considered the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2025, the President has signed the Bill and it has accordingly become law,” a statement from his spokesperson confirmed.

The Government rushed through the legislation to head off an expected rush by landlords outside the existing RPZs, which covered most of the country, to increase rents ahead of new rent rules announced by Housing Minister James Browne earlier this month.

The new rules are designed to stimulate investment in rental developments, but sparked warnings that they would inevitably lead to rent increases.

The Government is being pressured again over the housing crisis after announcing a swathe of new rent and housing measures.

New six-year minimum tenancies on offer from March next year have been criticised for allowing landlords to “reset” rents every six years.

Earlier, Housing Minister James Browne said the target to build 41,000 new homes this year is “not realistic”.

Mr Browne has admitted previously that meeting the 2025 target would be “extremely challenging” and all predictions are trending around 34,000.

Speaking on Newstalk on Thursday, he said he is committed to enacting a “step change” in the housing department and will clear “the dead wood out of the way so that homes can get delivered”.

“I think the challenge we have this year is we’re coming off a much lower base from last year than was expected,” he said of the housing targets.

“We had hoped for much higher figures last year.

“I think, looking at all of the different predictions, which are fairly consistent, I think 41,000 is not realistic for this year.

“We will wait to see how the year works out. I don’t particularly like getting into predictions.

“My position as minister is to maximise supply, maximise the delivery of new homes and, irrespective of what the housing numbers will be this year, I’m making a step change so we can get that housing supply up, because we need to get from 30,000 onto 50,000, on to 60,000 houses.

“40,000 houses is nowhere near enough.”

The last Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition built more than 130,000 homes between 2020 and 2024, while the current coalition has set a target of in excess of 300,000 new homes between 2025 and 2030.

The target for this year is 41,000 new builds, despite the fact the Government missed its target of 33,450 last year and also missed its newbuild social housing target by 1,429 last year.

The Central Bank has also projected the Government will miss its own housing targets by a wide margin for the next three years – and on Thursday revised its prediction down further, predicting 32,500 newbuilds by the end of 2025.

The Fianna Fail-Fine Gael Government, supported by several independents, has insisted boosting supply is the best way to encourage affordability while opposition parties argue more state-owned homes and regulation is needed.

“We’d gotten to a point with housing where we had seen a very significant increase in supply over the last number of years, and then it’s plateaued,” Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris said.

“The job of this government, and the job we’re working on day in day out, is to get that momentum back.”