Growth in private tenancies was lower last year than officially published figures suggest when State-funded cost-rental homes are excluded, new data shows. Sinn Féin, which obtained the figures, has argued they should be excluded as their inclusion “conceals” a lack of growth in private tenancies.
“Lumping cost-rental data in with private rental tenancies is not only inaccurate, it gives the false impression that the private rental sector is growing, when in fact it is stagnating at a time of rising demand,” its housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said.
The information released to the party was adjusted to remove the cost-rental category of lease – which offers below-market rents dictated by the cost of building a home and eliminating a profit for the developer.
Cost-rental units are delivered by approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency, with financial assistance from the State.
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The data was released to Ó Broin by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).
According to the figures, when cost-rental homes are excluded, the total number of private tenancies in the State grew by just 309 units in the period between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the same period in 2025, to stand at 238,859.
Figures published by the RTB which included the cost-rental homes show a total of 243,598 private tenancies, an increase of more than 2,600 homes – or 1.1 per cent.
Dublin Mid-West TD Ó Broin said there were “significant problems” in including cost rental in private tenancy figures, saying it was a completely different type of tenure and couldn’t be treated as part of the private rental sector.
“Cost rental is not-for-profit, Government-funded housing. The targets, eligibility criteria and delivery mechanisms, like social housing, are entirely set and controlled by Government,” he said, arguing that as a non-market form of housing it should be counted separately.
[ Dublin cost-rental scheme dropped over rising costsOpens in new window ]
The Sinn Féin TD said including the figures in the overall number of private tenancies “conceals what is actually happening”.
A spokeswoman for the RTB pointed to a statement from the Department of Housing which described cost rental as a “new category of private tenancies”. She said that cost-rental tenancies register through the private-tenancy registration process.
The RTB said it counts cost rental as a subset of private tenancy figures and it is stated separately in its publications, while it has also published a note on its inclusion in the private tenancies data, as well as publishing more information on a new website.
“As the volume of cost-rental tenancies continues to grow significantly, the RTB is committed to providing more detailed breakdowns of cost-rental tenancy data. The RTB is currently exploring upgrades to its tenancy registration system to make enhanced data on cost-rental tenancies available,” she said.
The Department of Housing referred queries on the inclusion of cost-rental homes to the RTB, saying it is independent in its functions.
