Dublin City Council rent hike like 'Mr Burns pretending to be strapped for cash'

The campaign to reverse the rent hikes imposed on social housing tenants last April continues, with Dublin's South Central Area being the latest committee to back a halt to the increases

Add to preferred sources Comments News Stephen Holland Local Democracy Reporter 11:23, 18 Sep 2026 Updated 13:17, 18 Sep 2026 View Image Sinn Féin Councillor Ciarán Ó Meachair speaking on rent increases at the South Central Area Committee

The pushback against Dublin City Council's increased rent on social tenants is now being felt across several committees.

Votes taken in the full council meeting , the Housing SPC , and now the South Central Area Committee have all seen a majority of representatives support a review, and potential reversal, of the rent increases introduced last April. The latest motion comes from Sinn Féin Councillor Ciarán Ó Meachair who likened the decision to increase rents on working class communities to the actions of the villainous Mr Burns from The Simpsons.

“If people know Mr Burns from The Simpsons, when he pretends to be poor just to get a few quid off everyone, that’s what Dublin City Council are unfortunately doing to tenants,” he said at Wednesday’s South Central Area Committee. Cllr Ó Meachair criticised the council for “pretending to be strapped for cash” while spending €44,500 on a new logo “that nobody asked for” or plans to pay hundreds of millions for the “vanity project” that is moving their offices from Wood Quay to Camden Yard. “These increases came into effect as a cost-of-living crisis escalated,” his motion stated.

“Over 320,000 people are currently in arrears on their energy bills, and many families report cutting back on food, heating and other essentials to make ends meet. The increases are particularly unjust for tenants living with damp, mould, sewage problems, poor windows and doors, and long standing maintenance issues. These issues are especially apparent in older housing stock.”

Cllr Ó Meachair highlighted the growing campaign over rent increases, which has seen tenants, community groups and CATU members protest outside every full council meeting since last year’s budget. The committee is calling on Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare to reverse the increases immediately and investigate alternative revenue-generating measures for housing maintenance funds.

While council officials have said the higher rates are to plug a funding deficit in their maintenance budget, the motions suggests considering alternatives like the rates and rebates scheme as proposed to the annual budget, a tourist tax , collection of uncollected vacant and derelict site levies, other outstanding levies, and developer contributions. Cllr Ó Meachair said it is “fundamentally wrong” to expect ordinary tenants to make up for the council’s shortfall and especially pointed out HAP and RAS tenants who will see no benefit of increased maintenance as they pay to private landlords, often paired with high top-up payments. He called out the irony of widespread opposition to the recent increase in transport fares from councillors who had previously voted in favour of the rent hike.

He also demanded that the Department of Housing “play their part” and provide the funding needed, rather than burden struggling tenants. “The Fianna Fáil Housing Minister showed with Oliver Bond he couldn’t care less about housing tenants,” he said.

“Let’s work together as the left and fight against the continued neglect of working class communities. Dublin City Council needs to get the money from somewhere else. This is Mr Burns from The Simpsons pretending to be strapped for cash and going after the working class.”

Green Party Cllr Ray Cunningham said that their area committee was not the appropriate place for the motion as they are not in position to change next year’s budget. He said that proposals to raise revenue and reduce rents should be going to their Finance SPC. He also said there is a need to have a reliable source of funding for housing maintenance, otherwise the same problems will “come back again and again”.

His party colleague, Cllr Michael Pidgeon similarly supported the increase as he believes there is a “clear, direct line between the rents charged and the maintenance we do”. He said decades of low rates have “starved” maintenance budgets and that the problems seen across council complexes are “the fruit of that decision”.

While many have suggested sourcing money from elsewhere, Cllr Pidgeon believes this unsustainable. He called for social housing maintenance costs to come from social housing rents and that “until you give it its own funding it will never have the stability to deliver”.

Labour Cllr Darragh Moriarty spoke about the severe maintenance problems faced by the tenants across his constituency and said that one of the most important things to address is responsiveness of Dublin City Council. He said that residents often wait months for basic issues to be addressed and that now that rents have been increased it is vital they see results in real, tangible terms.

Speaking at the Housing SPC, Assistant Chief Executive Mick Mulhern explained that when the working group was formed to develop the new rent scheme they sought to ensure those on the lowest incomes would be protected. He said that last year they wrote off €2 million worth of debt to a variety of tenants and that putting support in place for addressing individual cases of hardship is always on the table.

Executive Manager Frank D’Arcy said measures were put in to protect lower income earners, with their shock absorber income disregard raised to €55 per week from the previous €32. Mr Mulhern added that they endeavoured to design a “fairer, more equitable approach, rather than lower income paying proportionally more”.

This content is funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme

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