Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD will today introduce his Residential Tenancies (Amendment)(Sex For Rent) Bill 2024. The Bill seeks to amend the Residential Tenancies Act to protect renters from sexual exploitation by ensuring that seeking and advertising ‘sex for rent’ arrangements an offence under the Act.

Teachta Ó Broin said:

“It is more than two years since Ann Murphy in The Irish Examiner exposed the scandal of arrangements in the private rental sector in which renters are subject to sexual exploitation. Predatory landlords, aware of the huge pressure for tenants securing rental accommodation, were found to be effectively coercing renters into sexual exploitation.

“RTÉ Investigates further highlighted this appalling behaviour in a detailed documentary.

“Despite this, Government has yet to legislate to ban this practice.

“The Bill I am introducing today seeks to amend the Residential Tenancies Act to ban both the seeking of sexual exploitation of renters and the advertising of such arrangements.

“Particular groups of women are particularly vulnerable to this appalling practice, including migrant women and students.

“I will seek to progress this Bill to Second Stage as soon as possible and look forward to full Dáil support to ban this unacceptable exploitation.”