Dublin City Council tenants dealing with damp, mould and excrement coming up bath and sink
Dublin City Council is pivoting from a reactive approach to a planned housing maintenance model, with tenants across the city living in homes riddled with damp, mould, and even excrement coming up their bath and sink,
Around 50% of the council’s housing stock being built between 1930 and 1977, meaning a large proportion of homes are not up to modern standards, with poor insulation and subpar ventilation allowing mould, dampness and other problems to prosper.
At the Central Area Committee meeting on Tuesday, Senior Engineer Robert Buckle spoke to councillors about how the maintenance team carries out repairs on the approximately 27,000 dwellings within the council’s stock. Adding to the issue is the fact that 80% of these were constructed prior to the introduction of the Building Regulations in 1991.
The need to carry out maintenance works on some of the council’s oldest properties led to the controversial decisions to increase rents for those in social housing . While this decision was protested by tenants and many councillors, the rationale was that the additional funds will be needed to make up for a shortfall of over €55 million in the local authority's maintenance budget.
Mr Buckle said the council were previously reliant on central government for funding and that they had been overspending on their budget year-on-year to cover costs. Since 2017, he said they have carried out 4,500 inspections with regard to damp and mould and implemented 2,500 measures to address the problem.
From mechanical ventilation to anti-mould painting, Mr. Buckle explained they have many different methods of addressing maintenance issues, but the core problem is that older homes simply don’t meet modern standards. “I have banged this drum numerous times. In order for a property to be mould free it needs insulation, ventilation, and heating and we have properties that are just not properly insulated,” he said.
Mr. Buckle said there is a broad programme of works to regenerate the council’s flat complexes which will “hopefully eradicate” these problems. “For the work required, you are talking about a huge investment and massive amounts of money. Until that happens all I can do is investigate properties and look at the smaller solutions that are afforded to me at the time,” he said.
Councillors welcomed the move to a planned maintenance system, but said the conditions some tenants are currently living in are unacceptable. Sinn Fein Cllr Janice Boylan spoke about north inner city homes “riddled with damp and mould” that return time and again no matter what tenants do.
“Flat complexes across Dublin and the north inner city need to be given more attention and funding from the government to address the copious amounts of black mould. There are people who are house proud and keep their homes in glorious conditions and every single morning before they bring the kids to school they have to go around with bleach and products to wipe damp and mould off their windows, doors, bedrooms, and bathrooms,” she said.
“It’s an absolutely disgraceful way to live. We have people where, when it rains, it rains into their flat. People whose pipes are backed up and excrement come up into their bath and sink . I take on board we are dealing with older stock, but we didn’t just acquire them.”
Cllr Boylan criticised the council for allowing the flats around the city to deplete to this point. She blamed a lack of investment from central government and said successive Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments were responsible. “They are the people the tenants are holding responsible,” she said.
“Small leaks left for weeks unresolved become big issues. They are often reported several times before work commences and if you dare miss them you wait longer for them to assess, and even longer to have issues addressed. We, as a local authority, should be doing a whole lot more,” she said.
Green Party Cllr Janet Horner welcomed the shift toward planned maintenance and said it has been “unspeakably frustrating” speaking with tenants experiencing major problems with their housing and telling them there is no plan in place to address it.
She described some conditions as “totally unacceptable” and said they are out of step with modern expectations. “They wouldn’t have been acceptable at the turn of the century. People are living in conditions where it’s actually impacting their health.”
Taking this proactive approach “could not have come at a more urgent time,” according to Cllr Horner, who said peoples' homes must be made warmer and more energy efficient as a matter of urgency due to the worsening energy crisis. “Looking at the figures, just 77 units in the Central Area were brought up to a B2 standard in the last five years,” she said, explaining that their area is often left behind.
Cllr Horner said the the greatest allocation of maintenance funding should go toward the north inner city as there is an “unequivocal and undeniable” argument that this area has the most need for works. “There is a massively high concentration of flats that have been totally left behind by earlier efforts of retrofitting and regeneration,” she said.
“With respect to tenants across the city, I am unashamedly saying I want to see that spending concentrated in the north inner city. That is where the greatest need has been and where the least investment has been up to this point.”
Cllr Horner criticised Tánaiste and then- Taoiseach Simon Harris for failing to deliver the “long forgotten” commitments of the Dublin City Taskforce to rejuvenate Dublin city centre. “The commitments in the Taoiseach’s task force is the regeneration of all flats in the city centre,” she said.
She said an investment figure of €1 billion was previously floated, “but they have stopped talking about it.” Cllr Horner called for significant investment from government to ensure by next winter “people aren’t living with single glazed windows, mould, and damp in an energy crisis.”
Independent Cllr Malachy Steenson said it is not just the council’s older housing stock that is experiencing problems and said many buildings built in the 1930s are in better condition today than properties constructed in modern times . He said the work being done is welcomed, but there should also be a move back to a model where buildings had caretakers who can deal with problems as they arise, instead of things becoming bigger and getting “passed from Billy to Jack” without proper resolution.
He criticised the extended time it takes for the council to access voids and said there should be a policy to immediately address issues when someone vacates a property. “It should be cleaned up and put back into use,” he said.
“ Dublin City Council should be acting as a private landlord would. No other landlord would allow properties to just sit for years with nobody in them.”
Mr Buckle said measures are being put in place to reduce turnaround time for voids and that the average length is currently 23 weeks. He said their aim is to bring that down to 18 weeks in 2026 and that by 2030 “voids as we know them will be a thing of the past.” The council refurbished 972 void units in 2025.
Social Democrats Cllr Daniel Ennis described the current housing maintenance situation as “throwing a bucket of water over a blazing fire” and said the problems will persist “unless we see real funding from central government.”
“This government has shown us they don’t care about the north inner city or social housing tenants living in some of the worst stock in the country. Flats are riddled with damp and mould and yet we are increasing the rent. Tenants are paying for a lack of investment in local authorities. It is ridiculous,” he said.
“Unless we really commit to upgrading and improving our flat complexes we are in trouble. The way tenants are treated is truly shocking and a strain on our local authority.”
A council report states that the transition to proactive maintenance will require integrated information systems and a large number of new framework agreements. Current Central Area projects include:
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