Fingal councillors vote to pause planned rent increase – but it’s unlikely to happen

Fingal County Council should pause its rent increases for social housing tenants, councillors agreed at their monthly meeting on Monday evening.

The new differential rent rates, agreed by the council back in November, were due to go up by 14.5 percent this month.

But, following a motion tabled by Sinn Féin Councillor Malachy Quinn, a majority of the chamber voted in support of his request for the council to halt the rise.

A similar motion, seeking to review the rent increases at the earliest opportunity given cost of living, is sitting on the list in the Dublin City Council area, too.

Quinn, in his motion in Fingal, asked that the freeze be carried out in conjunction with recent measures announced by the government, on Sunday, to defer a planned hike to its carbon tax and reduce excises on fuel.

Their proposals didn’t go far enough, Quinn said, speaking at the meeting. “But we here in the council can make an impact on that, and we can accommodate and help our council tenants who badly need our help.”

Raising rents would only add to the crippling costs of families struggling with energy poverty, a cost-of-living crisis and increased transport costs, he said.

“I spoke to one of our council tenants yesterday, because she has been turning on the heating for an hour every day in the last seven days, because she simply has a choice to make,” he said. “It’s eat or heat.”

Morally, it is the right thing to do, said Labour Councillor Breda Hanaphy. “It’s just postponing it for a couple of months, or as long as this cost of living crisis lasts.

Although a majority of elected representatives supported Quinn’s motion, the council has given no indication that it intends to pause the increase.

The council is very conscious of what its tenants are going through, said Paul Carroll, Fingal’s director of housing. “We do have a very active housing team who are very tuned into the needs and the situations of our tenants, and will deal very humanely and compassionately with any hardship cases.”

But, there would be financial implications for the council in pausing these increases, as Carroll said. 

The council was counting on the rent increase raising millions, and it had allocated that projected income already. 

Supporting a pause

Quinn’s motion was very carefully worded, Carroll said as he provided the chamber with a report.

It did not ask for the council to freeze the increase. Instead, it asked that the council support a pause.

“The setting of differential rents is an Executive Function,” Carroll wrote in a report, responding to the motion.

That means it’s something the executives at the council get to decide on, not the elected councillors.

The income from the new rental rates was incorporated in the council’s 2026 budget, which councillors agreed to back in November, he wrote.

Differential rent is based largely on a percentage of a council tenant's income, and until the most recent budget, that rate was 12 percent.

At the November budget meeting, the council proposed a new rate of 17 percent. But this split the chamber. 

Labour, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, Green Party, Solidarity and Independents 4 Change councillors tabled a motion to delay a decision, and draw up an alternative.

To delay vote on 2026 budget and find way to avoid proposed rent increase

Failed: 18 for, 21 against, 0 abstentions

CouncilVoteTracker.ie

But that motion fell, and a second, introduced by independent Councillor Jimmy Guerin, proposing a rate of 14.5 percent, won out by a vote.

To approve the 2026 budget with a smaller rent rise than proposed

Passed: 21 for, 18 against, 0 abstentions

CouncilVoteTracker.ie

This was the first such adjustment to the Differential Rent Scheme since 2013, a council spokesperson said on Tuesday evening. “This is, in the context of a 50 percent increase in housing maintenance expenditure by the council since 2020, with maintenance costs expected to continue to increase in the future.”

Expenditure on housing now accounts for 37 percent of the council’s spending, they said.

The amended budget that councillors passed reflected an additional income of €3.3 million, said Oliver Hunt, Fingal’s director of finance, at the meeting on Monday. “That allowed us to facilitate increases in housing maintenance as well as other service areas across housing.”

Tenants and other stakeholders have already been communicated with on the proposed changes via post, direct contact and social media, Carroll said at the meeting on Monday. 

Motion agreed

During a discussion at the meeting on Quinn’s motion, Green Party Councillor David Healy proposed an alternative approach: adjusting the differential rent scheme based on the building energy ratings of the properties Fingal rents out.

Tenants in retrofitted buildings have no difficulty keeping their homes warm, but there are tenants in older houses who find it impossible to heat them, Healy said. “That says to me that we should be differentiating our rents on the basis of the buildings.”

Sinn Féin Councillor Angela Donnelly said tenants with disabilities are facing considerable issues too. “They have the additional cost of charging equipment, such as hoists and electric wheelchairs and honestly the term ‘heat or eat’ is a reality to them.”

Fuel, food and heating bills continue to spiral, Donnelly said. “The price of heating homes is particularly hitting households in uninsulated, draughty, council homes. We need to give these families a break.”

The council supports a retrofitting programme that will look to upgrade another 150 homes this year, said Carroll, the council’s director of housing. “Which will, in the long term, deal with the issues in terms of fuel poverty.”

But Guerin, the independent councillor, said he wouldn’t be supporting Quinn’s motion.

The council isn’t responsible for the war in Iran or the blockades that emerged from fuel protests here, he said. “But what we are responsible for, is to provide the retrofitting and the work and improvements of the budget and delivering on the budget that we voted on.”

People have been notified of these increases, he said. “And now we have to go and unfortunately collect these.”

He understood that it would be difficult for tenants, he said. “But we have a responsibility as a local authority to provide well for our tenants in homes. And that means retrofitting. It means fixing boilers. It means doing windows, and we have to fund that.”

Exceptional times

The motion wasn’t challenging the executive function of Fingal’s management, Quinn said. “This is asking and looking for support from management in the pausing of rental increases.

“We’re living in exceptional times, where we’ve just seen practically the breakdown of civil society almost in the last week, because people are hard pressed,” he said. “They’re pinned to their collar, whether they owned a haulage business or they’re a widow or widower living in a council property, they are all being affected in some shape or form.”

Quinn’s motion was agreed by 19 votes to 14.

To pause the council’s planned rent increase

Passed: 19 for, 14 against, 0 abstentions

CouncilVoteTracker.ie

When asked on Tuesday if the council would heed the motion and pause the increase, a spokesperson for the council said they acknowledge the concerns raised by councillors and note “the intent of the motion discussed”.

Fingal’s Differential Rent Scheme ensures that rents are income‑related and affordable, meaning that those households with lower incomes pay less rent each week, the spokesperson said.. 

“The Scheme also includes appropriate provisions to protect vulnerable households including the exclusion of certain income from rental calculations such as child benefit, carer’s allowance and fuel allowance,” they said.