{"id":159832,"date":"2025-11-26T01:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T01:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159832\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T01:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T01:47:09","slug":"row-over-dublin-council-rents-threatens-newfound-left-unity-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159832\/","title":{"rendered":"row over Dublin council rents threatens newfound left unity \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The unity of the left bloc that delivered Catherine Connolly<\/a>\u2019s spectacular victory in the presidential election will face its challenges, if Monday night\u2019s meeting of Dublin City Council<\/a> \u2013 and the fallout since \u2013 is anything to go by.<\/p>\n

There were angry exchanges between the left-wing parties that supported the budget (Labour<\/a> and the Green Party<\/a>) and those who didn\u2019t (Sinn F\u00e9in, People Before Profit and the Social Democrats).<\/p>\n

Labour and the Greens are, with Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael, part of the ruling group on the council, and supported the proposed budget for the coming year, which will see tenants of the council pay increased rents.<\/p>\n

The move was fiercely opposed by the other parties of the left and by Independents, despite the budget being substantially drawn up \u2013 with the assistance of council officials \u2013 by the finance committee, which is chaired by a Sinn F\u00e9in councillor. <\/p>\n

Opponents of the budget said that the rent hikes would hit the most vulnerable tenants, many of whom they said lived in substandard accommodation. <\/p>\n

Proponents of the rent increases, including Green councillor Michael Pidgeon, said it was precisely because the rents collected were too low to meet the cost of maintenance that they should be increased.<\/p>\n

Opponents said that some tenants would see increases of up to 50 per cent, while supporters pointed out that many of these rents were extremely low at present. It\u2019s a complicated system, linked to income, and although the changes are intended to see higher earners pay more, tenants of all incomes can expect increases.<\/p>\n

The move follows an analysis of tenant incomes, which found more than a fifth of council households have an after-tax income of greater than \u20ac1,000 a week. These households are paying heavily subsidised rents, with the average charge across the scheme \u20ac83 per week.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dublin City Council to raise social housing rents, with some tenants facing 50% hikeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The exchanges between the left-wing parties in favour of the budget and those against it were sharp and bitter. <\/p>\n

Green Party group leader Janet Horner said the campaign against the changes was \u201coutrageous … insulting and it\u2019s a cheap, manipulative play on people\u2019s lives in order to gain a few likes on your Instagram\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou are selling lies and snake oil,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Independent Cieran Perry said it was \u201cdifficult to take accusations from Greens and Labour seriously given their history of screwing the working class\u201d.<\/p>\n

It would be foolish to read too much into a scrap between councillors on the budget \u2013 everyone present knew that it would be passed, not least because failure to pass it means the council could be dissolved. Opposing the budget is a game played every year.<\/p>\n

But it also points to the inevitable difficulties that any combined left-wing alternative \u2013 much touted after the recent presidential election \u2013 will have in agreeing a position on difficult decisions around tax and spending in advance of the next general election.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Left\u2019s unity from Catherine Connolly campaign faces its first big testsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing left-wing parties agreeing that Ireland should be \u201ca voice for peace\u201d. It\u2019s quite another agreeing where to tax and where not to, where to spend, how much, and who should pay for it.<\/p>\n

The other instructive thing is how ready and willing the parties of the left were to accuse each other of lies and betrayal. The fact is, of course, that they will be in electoral competition with each other.<\/p>\n

None of this means that a left-wing alliance that is a viable alternative for government cannot come together. It just means that it\u2019s going to be difficult, and to require compromises that some of the parties may be unwilling to consider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The unity of the left bloc that delivered Catherine Connolly\u2019s spectacular victory in the presidential election will face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13288,8934,42,6189,43,43923,3415,1419,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-159832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-dublin-city-council","9":"tag-green-party","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-labour-party","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps","14":"tag-sinn-fein","15":"tag-social-democrats","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}