Last week, Dublin City Council, approved housing body, AHB, and HAP tenants received letters from the council saying rents are being increased from 6 April. These increases are in spite of the council not providing the bare minimum in terms of services or facilities. Conditions for residents in flats are lamentable. Tenants in this city are too often living in tiny and overcrowded conditions, with constant dampness and mould and with so many maintenance issues not being addressed by the council. Now, they are going to be charged more money by the council, which admits it is not able to provide the basic services residents deserve and need.

Rents are already too high across the city and the cost-of-living crisis is out of control. It is disgraceful the council has made this decision, which is completely unfair to the thousands of tenants living in unacceptable conditions. Labour Party, Green Party, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent councillors all voted to increase the rent for the council's tenants, saying this additional revenue is needed to provide necessary maintenance work.

Now, nobody believes for one second that maintenance standards are going to improve under Dublin City Council. Essentially, what is being said is that the people already struggling the most in our society need to foot the bill for the State's failure to meet its own tenancy obligations and that the people living in some of the worst housing conditions in the State need to pay more for the privilege of living with constant leaks, damp, rats, sewage and every other maintenance issue under the sun.

There is no clear plan for how these increases will actually result in better maintenance of public housing and there have been no real commitments regarding how this money will result in a new single improved service. The Government should be funding Dublin City Council enough in order that it can properly maintain social housing and build new units, rather than pushing that burden onto those who are barely able to get by as it is. In the meantime, Dublin City Council needs to be transparent with what it is doing with this revenue. It should ensure, at the very least, that it is invested in the social housing that desperately needs it.