PBP table emergency motion to reverse DCC rent hikes

People Before Profit have tabled an emergency motion for tonight’s Dublin City Council meeting calling for the immediate reversal of the rent increases imposed on council tenants, HAP tenants, RAS tenants and some Approved Housing Body tenants.

The party say they will support a demonstration by CATU members outside City Hall from 5:30pm.

The motion says the hikes must be reversed and backdated to April 6^th and calls for an urgent review of alternative revenue sources including unpaid vacant and derelict site levies, developer contributions and tourist accommodation levies.

It also demands that the Department fund planned maintenance for council housing rather than passing the cost onto tenants, and that Council management meet urgently with CATU.

In a statement, People Before Profit said:

“People Before Profit have opposed these hikes from the start.

“Over recent months, PBP councillors and activists have knocked thousands of doors, organised public meetings and worked closely with CATU in communities across Dublin.

“At the November 2025 budget meeting, People Before Profit councillors Conor Reddy and Hazel De Nortúin put forward a fully balanced amendment that would have scrapped the rent hikes, increased maintenance funding and raised the money instead from the city’s biggest commercial interests through a rates-and-rebate model that protected small businesses.

“That amendment was narrowly defeated, but it showed there was a clear alternative.

Councillor Conor Reddy said: “These rent hikes were a political choice and they should be reversed immediately.

“Tens of thousands of tenants are being hit at the worst possible time, in the middle of a deepening cost of living crisis.

“Dublin City Council should not be balancing its books on the backs of working class tenants, HAP households and families already struggling to keep the lights on and food on the table.”

Councillor Hazel De Nortúin said: “There is no justification for asking tenants to pay more while so many are living with mould, damp, disrepair and delayed maintenance.

“We already showed in November that there was another way.

“The Council should now act with urgency, scrap these increases and pursue fairer alternatives instead of squeezing those with the least.”

With over 320,000 people already in arrears on their energy bills and almost one in five living below the poverty line, People Before Profit say this is a cost of living emergency and requires an immediate response.