Ireland’s Tenants’ Union calls out injustice of tenants living with damp, mould and cold being told to pay more, and notes risk to HAP tenants.
Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) has called a protest outside City Hall at 5.15pm on Monday 24th November as Dublin City Council prepares to vote on a budget that includes sweeping rent increases for local authority tenants, HAP tenants and many Approved Housing Body tenants. CATU calls on the council to drop the proposed rent hikes, and appeals to councillors to reject any proposed council budget which relies on these hikes for maintenance funding.
The proposal would raise the differential rent from 15 percent to 18 percent, increase the share taken from non-primary earners, and impose a higher assumed income for self-employed workers, many of whom have varying and precarious incomes. The union is also concerned that while public debate has focused largely on council tenants, very little has been said about the thousands of HAP and AHB tenants who may also see their rent contribution rise, despite receiving none of the supposed maintenance benefits the Council claims the rent changes will fund.
CATU demands that local authorities and national housing bodies seek fair ways to raise revenue for maintenance including collecting vacant site levies and introducing a tourist tax ringfenced for the delivery and maintenance of public housing.
Eoghan Courtney, a CATU member in the Liberties, said “A lone parent on social welfare will see an increase of around 20 euro a month, which effectively wipes out the recent social welfare increases. In households where young adults are forced to stay living at home due to the housing crisis the impact will be severe. In a family earning roughly 1,000 euro a week with two adult children at home the increase could run to between €100 and €200 per month. That level of rent rise removes any ability to save and places enormous pressure on families already juggling rising rent, bills, groceries and transport costs.”
Helen Moynihan, CATU organiser for Dublin city said: “CATU has won improvements in some council housing in Dublin, and it has also revealed the scale of institutional neglect and the deep loss of faith tenants have in Dublin City Council’s ability or willingness to maintain the homes it owns. There are thousands of people in Dublin living in unacceptable conditions. The idea that they should now pay more for the privilege and continue to live in those conditions for years to come is wrong.”
Moynihan continued: “Irish local government is close to the worst funded and weakest in all of Europe. Thousands of jobs which once existed in the sector, especially direct labour tradespeople, have been cut since 2008 – despite substantial recovery. The bill for housing maintenance should not be dumped on tenants. Public housing is a public good and it must be funded adequately by the state”
CATU warned that HAP tenants and many AHB tenants, whose contributions are tied to the same scheme, will be quietly hit by the exact same increases.
Harun Šiljak, a CATU member and renter in the south inner city said: “People wait years for public housing and, when they finally get it, they try to stabilise their lives. They take on more hours at work, move from part-time to full-time, go back to education or training, and try to earn and save. Under these new changes any progress made by tenants would be clawed back by the Council. This is not fairness, it is the entrenchment of poverty and undermines the purpose of public housing.
We should not be looking to equalise pain. We should be building a housing system that guarantees affordablity, security and good quality homes for all. The path to that is a massive expansion of public housing, higher income eligibility limits and real investment in local authority maintenance and supply.”
Šiljak added: “CATU will use the organising networks built through housing maintenance campaigns to challenge these rent hikes. People who fought damp and mould will now fight this too”
CATU demands:
- Drop the rent hikes from the 2026 Dublin City Council Budget.
- If the executive refuses to remove or amend the increases CATU is calling on councillors to oppose any budget that includes rent increases
- Central government must properly fund local authorities so they can deliver planned and urgent maintenance at the level tenants require and deserve. This can be done through the introduction of a tourist tax, and the collection and ringfencing of vacant and derelict sites levies.