There has been lots of great policy reforms in the sector in recent years, including robust rent controls and more powers for the Residential Tenancies Board, the sector’s regulator. 

But there has been a continuous failure to deal with the lack of security of tenure experienced by tenants. I know from many years researching the experiences of tenants, this is the thing that matters most to them.

The reason for this failure is obvious — the Government is concerned strengthening tenants’ right to their home will scare off investors at a time when supply is a priority. 

This is an understandable concern, but it is unwarranted because it is possible to strike a balance between investment and security. 

We can do this via two major changes to the sector. First, introduce six-year, full-security tenancies. Second, create a new short-term rental sub-sector, separate and distinct from what we might call mainstream rental housing.

Six-year, full-security tenancies would be based on the existing structure set out in the Residential Tenancies Act, with one key change. Within the tenancy period (ie six years), there would be no grounds for eviction other than rent arrears or similar breaches of tenant obligations. 

Crucially, this means landlords could not terminate a tenancy due to intention to sell the property or family use, the most common grounds for tenancy termination.

The ability that landlords currently enjoy to terminate tenancies at any point for sale or personal use is incompatible with the core requirement for rental homes to provide some degree of security. 

The problem with these grounds is that they are unpredictable (there is no way for the tenant to anticipate the timing of the termination); they are entirely beyond the tenant’s control; and they are among the leading causes of homelessness.

Six-year, full security tenancies would mean tenants enjoy complete security of tenure within their tenancy period, which represents a huge advance on our present situation. It would also mean the ending of the tenancy period is predictable, so tenants can plan.

From the perspective of those landlords who invest for the medium- or long-term, six years is a reasonable time horizon. After six years, if they no longer wish to be landlords, they can recover their property and sell without issue.

The six-year, full security tenancy, then, aims to balance tenants’ need for security with landlords’ need to recover their property.

It would, however, act as an obstacle to ‘accidental landlords’ putting their property on the rental market. 

This is important because there are a variety of circumstances in which an individual may own a residential property which they do not reside in, such as they move in with a partner for an undefined period of time; they move abroad for an undefined period of time; or the house is in probate or similar.

To avoid these properties remaining vacant, and unduly hitting supply, we need a way to bring them into the market.

A new short-term sector would involve issuing specific licences for accidental landlords, allowing them to let their dwellings outside of the six-year, full tenancy framework described above. 

These would be two-year tenancies (after which point the landlord must either exit the PRS or convert the tenancy into a six-year, full security tenancy) and would allow for termination on grounds of sale of property or family use. 

In other words, landlords in the sector could recover their properties with ease.

Crucially, licences would be issued on a ‘once-in-a-life-time’ basis, that is, each individual could apply for such a licence only once. This would prevent abuse of the sector and ensure it remained exclusively focused on the minority of accidental landlords. 

As the situations which give rise to accidental landlords are quite limited, it seems reasonable households would have only one opportunity to avail of the short-term rental license.

Currently, and it is worth underlining this, the entire private rental sector is set up to accommodate accidental landlords, something all tenants pay the price for. 

There is simply no reason for this, when this cohort can be accommodated outside of the mainstream PRS, thus protecting the majority of tenants.

Of course, tenants in this sub-sector will have significantly worse security of tenure. One would hope, however, that this sector would be primarily made up of those households for whom long-term security is of least importance, such as students, recent migrants etc.

The combination of six-year, full security tenancies with a new short term sub-sector is not perfect. 

It would likely have some level of negative impact on investment (although I believe this would be limited), and it would not deliver full security for all tenants. 

The reality is, however, that we do not have the luxury of either ignoring the security of tenure issue altogether (we know this has failed), or of ignoring investment and supply. 

The above proposal is a compromise that everyone can live with, that delivers decent security of tenure for the majority, and which can sustain investment. 

It can form the basis of a long-term vision for the private rental sector, allowing us to move away from the constant change of recent years.

• Michael Byrne is a lecturer at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice at University College Dublin