Almost 1,300 households across Galway city and county received a notice to quit from their landlord last year.
New figures from the Residential Tenancies Board show 1,278 notices of termination were successfully served in Galway in 2025, averaging three evictions per day, every day, over the year.
Last week, housing charity Threshold published data showing short-term let listings, such as AirBnB, outnumbered advertised, available private rentals by almost ten-to-one in Galway: 1,105 short lets, compared to just 116 regular homes to rent. This is more than double the national ratio of four-to-one, with 8,600 properties advertised as short-lets nationally, compared to 2,100 regular rentals advertised online.
Eviction figures for Galway rose steadily every four months according to the RTB, with 301 notices served in the first quarter of 2025, followed by 318 in Q2, 321 in Q3, and 338 in the final four months, including Christmas.
Galway was consistently the third highest county for landlords giving notice to tenants throughout last year, after counties Dublin and Cork, and accounted for 6.4 per cent of the total 20,033 eviction notices issued across all 26 counties in 2025.
Nationally, eviction notices rose 41 per cent in the final quarter of 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. The rising figures appear to substantiate warnings from property owners last year that new rental rules, which came into force on March 1, would prompt many landlords to leave the rental market, although house prices at an all-time high is also influencing the decision to cash in.
New figures from auctioneers REA (Real Estate Alliance ) this week show the average price for a three-bed semi-detached home in Galway city is €398,000, or €312,480 in County Galway. This is a relatively stable 0.8 per cent increase since the last quarter of 2025: half the 1.6 per cent quarterly rise in Dublin postcodes where a similar property will cost close to €600,000.
Overall, however, the Irish rental market grew in the final quarter of 2025, with registered private tenancies up by 1.1 per cent year-on-year to 243,598 in Q4 2025; the highest ever recorded, with the proportion of private tenancies provided by landlords with 100+ tenancies increasing for the tenth consecutive quarter to stand at 14.9 per cent of the total.
Threshold based its analysis on data harvested from publicly available information to highlight the impact of short-term rentals on communities. Threshold said its analysis is “conservative” as it deliberately excludes single property listings, as they could be rooms to rent within the advertiser’s home, and properties regarded as unsuitable for long-term accommodation, including cabins, chalets, barns, campervans and yurts.
“The government has sleepwalked into this crisis,” says city councillor Niall McNelis, who has been raising housing concerns for several years. “The short lets issue is especially bad in Galway, and although we welcome visitors and tourists, where are the staff supposed to live who work in hospitality and tourism?” he said.
“Ask any politician of any party across the city, and I guarantee the vast, vast majority of constituent issues they’re dealing with are related to housing.”
From May this year, every short-term let in Galway must be registered with Fáilte Ireland to?comply with?EU regulations, and display a unique registration number on adverts. Fáilte Ireland does have a Quality Assurance unit to inspect hotels and guest houses, but concerns have been raised about its ability to enforce new rules.
A report in 2023 showed that of the 600 short lets then listed in Galway city, only six of them were registered with Galway City Council as part of planning rules connected with Rent Pressure Zones.
