THIS WEEK HAS brought Ireland’s planning laws and housing crisis into the spotlight in a big way. In County Meath, a family lost its 20-year court battle to keep their large home, which was built without planning permission.

Demolition teams were on site and ready to take down the 588sq metre home, which was seized earlier this week after Meath County Council secured a High Court order, with gardaí assisting in the operation.

Whatever your view, and while it’s never pleasant to see a structure demolished during a housing crisis, the planning laws of this country exist for a reason, and a good one at that. 

At the same time, it’s also been reported this week that the government is ready to move on with its long-promised review of Ireland’s planning laws.

Housing Minister, James Browne, is promising the ‘significant review’ in the coming weeks, with garden rooms/sheds, bike storage, external insulation and attic dormers all reportedly in the spotlight for possible exemptions from planning laws. 

In a persistent and relentless housing crisis, a change to planning laws is something that has been called for for some time. It is not, however, the best or first thing the government should be doing to fix this crisis.

Ireland’s housing situation has gotten so bad over so many years that, yes, something needs to change, but government policy on rent controls, land zoning, dereliction and an end to reliance on the private market to increase supply should really come first. 

The debate around garden rooms and cabins has been ongoing for the last few years. There is a place for modular housing in a modern setting, once it is done properly and is within safety and planning guidelines.

The issue in this country is that, despite some homeowners and cabin companies doing their best to build workable, safe cabins, there will always be those who play the system and seek to profit, putting others at risk. So, if it is to be done, it must be done properly and with effective oversight.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

This time last year, a new resident in our area started constructing a large shed, taking up nearly half of their small city garden.

Notes of Tom Waits ‘What’s he building?’ rang in the ears of people around, as we watched its timber walls and roof quickly assemble. Over the next few months, the shed got fitted out with two domestic windows and a door, followed by electrics and plumbing for a sink and toilet.

‘Wow, that’s some size for a home office or home gym’, we thought.

So you can imagine our surprise six months later, when we saw two small single rooms in this shed being rented out for €600 a month each (along with the three other bedrooms in the recently renovated terrace home going for up to €1,200 a month per room).

It turns out this new local resident wasn’t going to be a new neighbour after all, but their tenants would be.

Throughout the winter, we often thought of these new residents, the tenants, in their garden shed home. Since there is no covering between the shed and the main house, they have to go out into the icy rain and wind any time they want food or even to sit in a seat.

Aside from our ethical concerns, the shed was clearly not meeting the legal minimum standards for home rental properties. And the health and safety of the two people living in the shed was a huge worry.

In particular, the shed is surrounded by six-metre-high walls and a flammable plastic fence, making our neighbours extremely vulnerable if a fire broke out. The only exit from the garden is through the main house.

Some locals in the area felt they were left with no choice but to report the landlord. As soon as the tenants moved in, the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) was notified anonymously, with the hope that they would inspect the property and sanction the landlord.

Attic dormer conversions and modular homes are in the spotlight, with a view to relaxing planning rules. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

But six months later, the house is not even registered as a rental property with the RTB, never mind been subjected to any inspection. Which, in hindsight, should not come as a surprise given it was estimated in 2024 that 73,000 landlords illegally failed to register their rental properties, risking a €4,000 fine or six months imprisonment, yet only 55 landlords were sanctioned that year, a mere 0.075% of all unregistered tenancies.

We did not realise six months ago that the RTB does not actually inspect the conditions of rental properties. They only investigate breaches of tenancy laws like illegal evictions or rent hikes.

It turns out it’s your county or city council that is responsible for checking the condition of rental properties. And as it happens, these local authorities tend to be proactive in undertaking inspections, having inspected 80,150 rental homes in 2024.

Worryingly, a whopping 71% of them did not meet legal minimum standards, although we don’t know how many involved sheds as homes.

There seems to be some confusion as to whether anyone but the tenant can complain about this type of subpar rental accommodation. A quick Google search will tell you that, yes, the RTB and the likes of Dublin City Council offer routes for complaints of substandard rental accommodation by neighbours, local residents, etc. However, to our surprise, residents in our area hit a brick wall with Cork City Council, which stipulates that only tenants can make complaints against these unscrupulous landlords. 

This is a flawed system when you consider that many renters may be too afraid to report problems to their landlord because they know it could easily lead to an eviction notice, a rent hike, loss of HAP or all three.

All are valid fears, as seen in recent news reports. As local residents, we feel helpless in the fight against these rogue landlords.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Through direct action with the tenant’s union CATU, we have seen firsthand what it’s like for renters living in our neighbouring streets in Cork city, including holes in ceilings, leaking toilets, broken windows, damp, mould, broken boilers in winter and irresponsible landlords.

When we are on the streets doing our provocative #DerelictIreland street, we consistently hear horror stories from renters, from young to old, students, workers and pensioners.

Even those who have told us they are happy with their rental home and their landlord still live in fear of eviction because one day the owner might need to sell up or a family member might need to move in. Then there are the stories of those deemed “hidden homeless” (e.g. sleeping in their cars, on a friend’s sofa) who are not accounted for in any official housing statistic, estimated at 290,000 people by Simon Community in 2022.

And what about those living in social homes managed by the local authorities? Who do they complain to? Yes, they are less likely to be evicted or their rent increased for complaining, but how likely are they to have the problems fixed? Not likely, it seems.

A recent survey by Sinn Féin found that 90% have/had maintenance problems and that 72% of these households have had the problems for longer than two years, with most of these reporting a worsening of the problem when repair is delayed.

This lack of maintenance, combined with some local authorities’ latest drive for converting family homes into co-living spaces, is very worrying. How soon before we end up with 24 people sharing a five-bedroom council home, in a similar vein to the recent Galway viral Instagram post?

The options for local residents here are limited and confusing. In Irish law, the Housing Act 1966, the definition of overcrowding is as follows:

Any two people over 10 years of age of opposite sexes (who are not husband and wife) have to sleep in the same room

The free air space in any room used for sleeping is less than 400 cubic feet per person (assuming a ceiling height of 8 feet).

And according to the government, ‘Local Authorities are responsible for the enforcement of this legislation’. We need to make it easier for neighbours, local residents and communities to report these practices, at a time when tenants are too afraid to rock the boat. 

All of this raises the question of whether or not it is fair to neighbours and local residents to have to be the ones trying to complain about unsafe rental homes if it results in someone being evicted through no fault of their own.

In our current shed situation, we mentioned above, the only route left is for local residents to make a formal complaint to the council that this shed home is in violation of planning rules. 

In Ireland, as things stand and notwithstanding the government’s future plans to relax the rules, you can legally build a detached shed/garden room of up to 25 square metres, provided you meet a host of other planning rules. One of those rules is that you must leave at least 25 square metres of garden remaining on your property. The others include that the property should not be:

Used for commercial purposes

Used for keeping pigs, poultry, pigeons, ponies or horses.

The shed in our area, therefore, was not illegal when it was built, as it seems to fit within the 25m2 size limits; it became illegal when it was slept in overnight. It will be interesting to see if the government’s cabin/garden room plans can make these rules clearer and easier to enforce. 

Some of our readers might be muttering to themselves, ‘mind your own business, at least tenants have some sort of roof over their heads and their own bedroom, in a housing crisis’.

Are they right? What do we do next to quell this sense of helplessness?

Unfortunately, the reality is that those new tenant residents in our area are paying through the nose to live in this shed. It is yet another case of an absentee landlord making a killing from another human’s essential need for a roof over their heads.

But what does it say about a country when every law to protect tenants seems to be regularly flaunted by bad landlords with very little repercussions? Of course, the vast majority of landlords follow the rules and do not exploit their tenants, but the laws are meant to stop the bad landlords, so why aren’t they being enforced?

We recently felt particularly overwhelmed with sadness as the new Residential Tenancies Bill kicked in, resulting in sickening mass eviction notices and some of the country’s biggest landlords predicting a 25% rise in rental income.

How has a country that had a land war for tenants’ rights (which was deeply intertwined with our fight for independence), let landlords make insane profits through exploiting people in desperate need of a home?

Will all those who fought for Irish independence be turning in their graves, seeing how we still govern this country with the notion that landlords are above the law and that tenants are only seen as cash cows?

We know we are the ‘lucky’ ones owning our own home, and we are thankful for this privilege every day. But luck shouldn’t determine whether your human right to have a home is met.

We live with Dóchas that someday soon the rights of renters to a safe, secure and affordable home will become a reality for everyone in Ireland.

Jude Sherry and Dr Frank O’Connor are founders of anois.org, ffud.art and #DerelictIreland. 

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