A Dublin City Council proposal to increase the rent of social housing tenants has been branded "obscene" and ‘picking the pockets of some of the poorest working families’. 

Typically, social housing tenants are charged 15% of the income of the primary earner. 

However, the council says costly maintenance works need to be carried out on social housing properties and it needs to raise funds to pay for them. 

On Lunchtime Live, listener James O’Toole, who grew up in social housing and now lives in social housing in Ballyfermot, said he worries any change would mean less money for people in poverty. 

 “I’ve seen how the differential rents system, where people pay a percentage of their income, how that helped people like my father, for example, who was a rank and file soldier in the army,” he explained. 

“That helped him save a little and eventually save up for a house and we moved up to Crumlin. 

“Now I find myself back in social housing.” 

Houses in Dublin. Picture by: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie. 

Mr O’Toole added that many of his neighbours have been waiting years to be allocated social housing. 

“The extremely low thresholds for social housing meant people were forced to live in poverty,” he argued. 

“Eventually people get into social housing and they think, ‘Right, the fact that rent is capped at 15% of income means that they can actually start to dream.’

“The fact that successive governments have cut funding to the local councils and now the local councils are looking for revenue streams, the fact that they’d try to pick the pockets of some of the poorest working families in the city, I just think that’s obscene.” 

A protest against the changes is due to take place outside City Hall this evening.

Main image: A bunch of keys in a door lock. Picture by: Alamy.com.