Dundalk, Co Louth — The average rent for new tenancies in County Louth has risen to €1,451 per month, while eviction notices across Ireland surged 41% in the final quarter of 2025, according to the latest Director’s Report from the Residential Tenancies Board.
The RTB report also found that the standardised average rent for existing tenancies in Louth stood at €1,230 in the third quarter of 2025 a year-on-year increase of 2.5%.
The figures have drawn sharp criticism from Sinn Féin TD for Louth, Ruairí Ó Murchú, who described them as “extremely worrying” and said they reflect concerns being raised daily by renters across the county.
Eviction Notices Up 41% Nationally
The 41% rise in eviction notices between October and December 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, represents one of the sharpest quarterly increases recorded by the RTB.
The surge coincides with a period in which landlords were rushing to serve notices before the Residential Tenancies Act 2026 came into force on March 1 a pattern already documented by the RTB in several high-profile cases, including 36 households in Wexford who received eviction notices days before the new rules took effect, and 20 families in Limerick served with notices in similar circumstances.
The RTB data also confirms that both new and existing rents were already rising in the year to September 2025 before the new legislation came into force.
‘Renters Now Face Even Higher Rents’
Ó Murchú said tenants who received eviction notices will now be forced to find new accommodation under the Government’s market rent reset rule a provision in the new legislation that allows landlords to set rents at prevailing market rates when a tenancy ends.
“These renters will now have to find alternative accommodation under the government’s new controversial market rent reset rule,” he said. “This means they will face even higher rents than before. In many cases, renters will not be able to afford the new rents and will be at risk of homelessness.”
The Louth TD said opposition parties had warned about exactly these consequences during the legislative debate that preceded the March 1 commencement.
“Renters are now in an even more vulnerable position than they were before the government’s rent legislation was passed into law,” he said.
Government and RTB Defended the Legislation
The Government has defended the Residential Tenancies Act 2026, arguing it gives tenants six-year security of tenure for the first time. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said this week there are now 248,000 active tenancies a record number and described the overall rental market as stable and growing.
However, Ó Murchú said the RTB figures tell a different story on the ground.
“Government policy is making private renting less secure and more expensive,” he said. “Instead of pushing up rents and homelessness, government should be cutting rents and banning no-fault evictions, alongside increased and accelerated delivery of social, affordable and private homes.”
Broader Crisis Deepens
The Louth figures sit within a national picture of accelerating affordability pressure. The median house price nationwide reached €390,000 in January 2026, according to the CSO up from €387,000 a year earlier. Apartment prices rose 12.3% outside Dublin in the same period.
In Dublin, fewer than 1,000 properties are currently listed on Daft.ie, with some listings charging €199 a week to share a bedroom with a stranger. National homelessness figures show more than 17,000 people are currently in emergency accommodation, including 5,319 children. A Dublin family spent a record eight years and seven months in emergency accommodation, according to data released by Dublin City Council this month.
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