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Equality Guidelines for Listings

Discrimination in providing accommodation is prohibited in Ireland by the Equal Status Acts 2000–2015. That includes advertisements: an ad may not state — or imply — an intention to discriminate. This applies to everyone who posts a listing, including private landlords and people advertising a room in a shared house.

The ten protected grounds

An ad must not exclude or express a preference against people based on:

  • Gender
  • Civil status (single, married, divorced, etc.)
  • Family status (having children, being pregnant)
  • Sexual orientation
  • Religion
  • Age
  • Disability
  • Race, skin colour, nationality or ethnic origin
  • Membership of the Traveller community
  • Receipt of housing assistance (HAP, rent supplement) — landlords cannot say "no HAP"

What that means in practice

  • "Indian tenants only", "no non-nationals", "Irish preferred" — not allowed (race/nationality ground), even on a community platform like ShareIN.
  • "No children", "professionals only, no HAP", "no students over 30" — not allowed.
  • Describing the property and area factually — "close to Indian grocery stores", "vegetarian kitchen", "near the temple" — is fine. Describe the home, not who is allowed to apply.
  • ShareIN's community tags (veg-friendly, near Indian stores, etc.) describe the home and the area — they never exclude anyone. Use those instead of writing restrictions into your ad.

Shared homes — a limited exception

The law contains a narrow exception for renting a room in the home you actually live in (and small premises situations), where some requirements don't apply in the same way. Even so, ShareIN asks all advertisers to keep listing text free of discriminatory wording — it's better for the community and keeps you clearly on the right side of the law.

Enforcement on ShareIN

We may edit or remove listings with discriminatory wording. If you see one, report it to contact@sharein.ie.

See also our Terms of Use. For the official picture, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (ihrec.ie) explains the Equal Status Acts in detail.