Data from the Residential Tenancies Board indicates that 5,405 termination notices were served during the third quarter of 2025, marking a 35% rise compared with the same period last year. RTB figures show that 19,011 notices were issued in 2023, followed by 16,546 in 2024 and 14,826 across the first three quarters of 2025, reports RTE.
Based on current patterns, the overall figure for 2025 is expected to be close to, and potentially slightly exceed, the level seen in 2023. This reflects not a temporary spike, but an ongoing trend of persistently high tenant displacement, reports RTE.
The majority of these eviction notices are not linked to unpaid rent or tenant behaviour. Instead, 61% of notices issued between 2022 and 2025 were attributed to landlords stating an intention to sell their properties. This suggests a rental sector that a growing number of property owners no longer consider sustainable, reports RTE.
As small-scale landlords leave the market, many properties move into owner-occupation, shrinking the pool of available rental homes. Every such sale further constrains supply, intensifies pressure on tenants who remain, and increases insecurity for future renters.
Ireland’s history of evictions
While the issuance of 5,000 eviction notices over a three-month period is concerning, the picture becomes more troubling when placed in historical context. Evictions were a central social and political issue in Ireland throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.
They arose from a landlord system marked by stark inequality in land ownership, where the vast majority of farmland was controlled by landlords representing less than 1% of the population. Most people had no legal ownership rights and lived under constant threat of eviction, reports RTE.
In the years leading up to the Famine, evictions were a common and distressing aspect of daily life. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, approximately 5,000 civil bill ejectment cases were initiated each year, with more than two-thirds resulting in eviction orders, reports RTE.
Even accounting for the fact that some orders were used primarily to pressure tenants into paying rent and did not always lead to permanent displacement, the data indicate that thousands of families were forced from their homes annually before the Famine.
During the Great Famine, laws that denied poor relief to tenants holding more than a quarter acre of land actively promoted widespread evictions and functioned as a “death-dealing instrument”. It is estimated that more than half a million people were evicted during this devastating period in Irish history. In subsequent decades, eviction numbers declined steadily, averaging 885 per year between 1855 and 1877. They rose again during the Land War from 1879 to 1882, before falling over time as tenant rights, land reform and political change transformed the system, reports RTE.
The revealing comparisons between then and now
There are, of course, significant differences between the past and the present. Household sizes in the 19th century were considerably larger, with an average of 4.85 people displaced per eviction between 1849 and 1880. By contrast, the 2021 census recorded an average household size of 2.74. As a result, contemporary eviction figures affect fewer people per household.
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A more telling comparison, however, lies in eviction rates relative to household numbers. Between 1855 and 1877, evictions occurred at a rate of 0.14 per 100 holdings, increasing to 0.48 per 100 during the Land War. Using the 2021 census figure of 1.95 million households, recent RTB data suggest a modern rate of roughly one eviction notice per 100 households in both 2023 and 2024, and even higher when considering rented households alone, reports RTE.
Those facing eviction today also represent a much smaller share of the total population than in the 19th century. Renters now make up 33% of the housing market, compared with 96% in the 1800s. Even allowing for the fact that not all eviction notices ultimately result in tenants being removed, it is reasonable to argue that current eviction rates are at levels not seen in Ireland since the 1850s.
While historical comparisons must be treated cautiously due to major differences in economic, social and political conditions, the parallels remain striking. This is not a return to the Land War era. Today’s housing system is urban, highly financialised and dominated by private rental arrangements rather than agricultural tenancies. Nonetheless, the scale of displacement being recorded today would not appear out of place in post-Famine Ireland, and tenants arguably enjoy fewer customary protections than those in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is little doubt that evictions, both then and now, remain a deeply damaging feature of Irish society, reports RTE.
The story in other countries
Comparing eviction figures internationally is challenging because countries record them in different ways. Some track eviction proceedings, others court orders, while some only count physical removals. Based on RTB data and census figures, an estimated 3% to 4% of renter households in Ireland receive a notice of termination in a typical year. While this does not equate to an eviction order, it represents an early stage in the process and shows how many tenants are required to leave their homes.
Data from the OECD indicate that in many Western European countries, including the UK, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, fewer than 1% of renter households face eviction orders each year. Compared with these countries, the initiation of eviction processes appears relatively uncommon, whereas Ireland may have one of the highest proportions of renters receiving notices of termination in the western world, reports RTE.
In simple terms, a larger share of Irish tenants are being told to vacate their homes than in many comparable countries. This does not automatically mean Ireland has the highest eviction rate in the OECD, but it does point to an unusually high number of tenants entering the eviction pipeline.
For many families, receiving a notice of termination now triggers a desperate search for housing in a market characterised by record rents, limited supply and fierce competition. Eviction is no longer an isolated experience affecting a small group of vulnerable tenants; instead, it is becoming a routine reality within the private rental sector, reports RTE.
Historically, periods of widespread eviction were seen as clear evidence of deeper structural failures. In the 19th century, Ireland confronted the question of what reforms were necessary to reduce evictions and restore social stability. The response involved sweeping changes to land ownership, tenancy law and social protections, fundamentally reshaping property relations once eviction levels became politically and socially intolerable.
Current RTB figures suggest the modern rental system may be nearing a similar turning point. When evictions reach this scale, they cease to be an unfortunate side-effect of market forces and instead signal a system that is no longer providing basic housing security, reports RTE.
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