PB February-March 2026

February-March 2026 37

By Amaal Zaki

Rental breakdown

Ireland’s rental regime forces tenants

into a permanent state of precarity,

the threat of homelessness functions

as an unofﬁcial instrument of policy

enting in Ireland has become a slow

disaster for anyone who depends

on the private market, a system

where people are expected to build

their lives in homes they can be

asked to leave at any moment. Tenants live

with an ambient, unrelenting fear of notices

that can arrive without warning, backed by

statutory mechanisms that allow landlords

to evict using reasons that never need to be

proven to any evidentiary standard. What is

presented as neutral regulation functions

instead as structural insecurity, a form of

engineered precarity that shapes daily life.

Once you lose a home, there is nowhere

aordable to go, and the law, as written and

enforced, does little to alter that reality.

The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) was

created to provide oversight, but in practice

it operates as a repository for completed

forms and procedural compliance rather than

substantive protection. If the paperwork is

completed correctly, the eviction proceeds,

even if the tenant has nowhere to stay.

Landlords may select from a statutory menu

of permitted justiﬁcations — intention to sell,

family member needing the property, or, in

the most damaging category, allegations

of antisocial behaviour — and they are not

required to prove these claims beyond the

mere act of asserting them. This leaves renters

exposed to loopholes that are used repeatedly

and systematically to empty properties with

little accountability.

Meanwhile, the wider housing market

intensiﬁes the instability. Supply is scarce,

rents climb relentlessly, and rooms regularly

consume more than half of a person’s salary.

The competition for even a basic place to live is

so extreme that hundreds or even thousands

may apply for a single listing. The possibility

of saving for a mortgage collapses under this

weight. Long-term plans evaporate. As of

March 2025, 15,418 people were in emergency

accommodation, a statistic that reveals not

individual misfortune but a systemic failure

maintained by deliberate political inertia.

I speak from direct experience of this

system. When I moved into a small room in

what I hoped would be a stable home, that

illusion evaporated within a week. The landlord

announced he needed the house for his family

and I would have to leave. The alternative was

homelessness. I stayed. He began a campaign

of pressure and harassment designed to

remove me without ever admitting it. Two

tenants were pushed out within months. I

remained, alone in the house, until he gave up

and asked me to rent the other room.

Following a divorce, ownership transferred

to his wife, who deployed a letting agency

that immediately issued a two-month notice

that was obviously illegal. I challenged it

successfully, but the harassment continued:

messages accusing me of overstaying,

claims I was residing illegally, and routine

neglect of repairs including hot water and

heating. Eventually, a fully compliant notice

to terminate on the basis of “intention to

sell” was served. Under Irish law, no proof of

intention is required; the declaration itself

is enough to permit eviction. The tenant has

no defence other than procedural defects. A

landlord may state an intention to sell without

demonstrating steps that would indicate any

actual intention, and the RTB will proceed on

that basis.

Before that, however, I lived in another

house where the tactics were even more

extreme. There, the landlord issued a notice

alleging antisocial behaviour. It appeared

legally polished — clearly drafted by a lawyer

— but the allegation itself had no factual basis.

What followed demonstrates the systemic

vulnerabilities baked into the Residential

Tenancies Acts.

The antisocial behaviour claim was

unproven in every material respect. The

documentation issued to me contained no

evidence: no dates, no times, no particulars

of any incident, no photographs, no witness

statements from other occupants, no Garda

reports, no inspection ﬁndings — nothing that

could meet any evidentiary threshold. The

allegation existed solely as an uncorroborated

assertion. Threshold/RTB correspondence

conﬁrms that the notices were formally

disputed, and therefore not accepted as

established fact. Once disputed, the statutory

burden of substantiating the allegation fell on

the landlord. Instead of pursuing it through

RTB adjudication, the landlord abruptly

abandoned the antisocial behaviour ground

and issued a dierent notice claiming that

a family member required the dwelling. The

sudden substitution of grounds is consistent

with a position in which the initial allegation

cannot withstand scrutiny.

The pattern escalated: within a short period

the landlord served multiple contradictory

notices, each invoking a dierent statutory

basis for termination. This practice is

inconsistent with the structure of the

Residential Tenancies Acts, which contemplate

a single coherent factual basis for termination

rather than a scattergun deployment of

mutually incompatible grounds. Such

inconsistency undermines the credibility of

the landlord’s assertions and indicates a

tactical attempt to identify any ground that

might force my departure, regardless of truth

or substantiation.

Critically, no RTB adjudication has ever

upheld any ﬁnding of antisocial behaviour

against me. Absent an adjudicative

determination and given the complete

absence of evidence, the allegation remains

factually, legally, and procedurally unproven.

In reality, there was no antisocial behaviour.

The claim was a pretext. When it failed, the

landlord resorted to another loophole: the

“family member moving in” ground — a

provision routinely exploited across the rental

I speak from direct

experience of this system

POLITICS

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38 February-March 2026

February-March 2026 PB

Multiple

conﬂ icting

notices were

served within

days, further

indicating that

none of the

claims, including

antisocial

behaviour,

could withstand

scrutiny

sector. During this campaign, someone was

even sent to intimidate me physically to force

me out. The pressure was relentless, and

eventually I left, not because the law protected

the landlord’s rights, but because the system

provided no practical protection for mine.

These experiences are not aberrations;

they illustrate systemic failures that expose

tenants to cascading vulnerabilities. Irish law

prioritises property rights, casting tenants

as temporary occupants whose presence is

conditional and easily revoked. Even long-term

tenants can be displaced rapidly. Evictions,

legal or quasi-legal, impose psychological

and material consequences the law does not

acknowledge. Anxiety, exhaustion, and a

state of permanent vigilance become normal.

Long-term plans, educational commitments,

and career opportunities are distorted by the

uncertainty of housing.

Some landlords exploit this vulnerability

through harassment, coercion, and the

calculated misuse of statutory grounds.

These abuses are rarely reported and even

more rarely penalised, not because they

are uncommon but because the procedural

architecture favours landlords’ assertions

over tenants’ worldly realities. The e ects

extend beyond individuals: communities

fragment, networks weaken, and vulnerable

groups — Including international students,

low-income workers, and those without family

safety nets — face disproportionate harm. The

rental system functions less as housing policy

and more as a mechanism that transfers risk

downward onto tenants.

Reform is not optional. Current laws

may appear to o er protection, but they

operate to facilitate eviction rather than

prevent unjust displacement. Tenants

require stability, not merely correctly issued

notices. Evictions should require actual

evidence, with meaningful thresholds and

consequences for misuse. Homelessness-

prevention mechanisms must have statutory

force. A ordable housing must be enforced

rather than aspirational. And tenants should

have the right to remain in their homes until

genuine, veriﬁ able alternatives exist.

Without structural change, tenants will

continue to live one notice away from precarity,

subject to a regime that privileges the paper

intentions of landlords over the material

realities of people’s lives. My experience is

not an anomaly but a warning: without reform,

countless others will endure the same cycle of

instability I have faced for thirteen years — an

existence lived under the constant threat of

losing one’s home.

Amaal Zaki (Ama) is an Irish writer who recently

completed a memoir and a ﬁ ction novelette

and is actively seeking publication.

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