Social tenants should not be blocked from using apartment amenities if they pay for them, says Dublin City Council
People living in social housing blocks should not be prevented from accessing on-site amenities in their complex, provided they pay for the privilege, Dublin City Council (DCC) has said.
It follows a recent Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ruling that Dillon Marshall Property Consultants – which manage many private rentals across Leinster – discriminated against a social housing tenant by blocking her from accessing the on-site gym in her complex.
When the tenant, Agnieszka Nowakowska, offered to pay an additional out-of-pocket fee to use the facility, she reportedly was told her access was denied because she lived in the social housing block.
The adjudication officer ordered the management company, which did not send a representative to the hearing, to pay Ms Nowakowska €2,500 in damages. A 42-day window to appeal the finding is open until later this month.
The Irish Independent can confirm that the apartment complex at the centre of the dispute is Castleview in Dublin 12, a 392-apartment scheme completed in 2023.
Block 5, which consists of 39 apartments, is owned by the Iveagh Trust, an approved housing body (AHB) that provides housing for DCC tenants there.
A spokesperson for the council said it paid a “basic management fee” that covered housing, not the full range of amenities such as a gym and a co-working space.
“It is DCC’s view, however, that if a tenant wishes to use any of these additional services, they should be able to approach the management company and make a separate arrangement to pay to access these services at their own cost and this should be facilitated where it is possible to do so,” they said.
A social housing tenant said his six-year-old asked to go into the lounge where kids were playing, but children from Block 5 are not allowed inside
Dillon Marshall did not respond to requests for comment, but a letter sent to social tenants from the Iveagh Trust last month, seen by the Irish Independent, said the on-site gym was “privately owned and not open to the public”.
“Residents of the other blocks have an option to pay a fee to use the gym facilities. This is not available to the residents of the Iveagh Trust’s block,” the AHB’s head of housing, Katie Madden, wrote.
“The advice we have received states that this facility is not subject to the same rules as a commercial gym or a private members club,” she said.
“The Iveagh Trust must advise that it has no involvement or right to access the shared facilities, the same can be said for Dillon Marshall who provide a management service to the estate.”
Residents living in Block 5 say it is difficult that they are denied access to facilities on their doorstep, particularly for children.
Paul O’Connell, a social housing tenant in the complex, said his six-year-old asked to go into the lounge where kids were playing, but children from Block 5 are not allowed inside.
“I had to tell him no,” he said. “A lot of us are here with young kids, and we just want them to be involved with what’s going on.”
Mr O’Connell said he walks past the on-site gym every morning on his way to another gym where he pays a membership fee.
“I have no problem paying my gym membership, so why would I not want to pay it to use them facilities?” he said. He would also like to pay to access the lounge area where his son can play with other kids, but the option is not available.
“It’s just discrimination,” he said.
Local Sinn Féin councillor Daithí Doolan added: “If those residents in social housing are willing to pay, but they’re excluded, that just copper-fastens my belief of apartheid existing in housing in Dublin.”
He wants the WRC ruling to serve as a “wake-up call” for other operators blocking social tenants from accessing facilities.
“I hope it’s a lesson to management companies that you cannot simply exclude people based on tenancy, because it is discrimination,” he said.
People Before Profit councillor Hazel De Nortúin said her main worry would be how the next generation would be affected by the divide.
“If kids are growing up, kids don’t see boundaries. They don’t see the same social structures that we do,” she said.
“I’ve seen where they’ve been on either side of a fence, and their friends can’t come in and play with them because they’re social tenants.
“I’ve seen it across other developments, where there’s an invisible line drawn between them and us. It never makes for comfortable living for anybody. Nobody wins.”
A Department of Housing spokesperson said local authorities generally opted out of paying additional amenity fees for social tenants because they would be a “significant extra cost”.
“It is a matter for each local authority to decide to pay these additional amenity contribution costs from local authority funds on a case-by-case basis, or to explore the option for tenants to pay these costs directly to the relevant entity charging the fee,” the spokesperson said.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, chief executive of The Iveagh Trust Aiden Culhane said he would like to see social tenants being able to access the complex’s amenities alongside private residents, but that decision was not up to him.
“We own Block 5, that’s it. The rest of the development and the governing arrangements around it, are out of our hands,” he said.
“The Iveagh Trust can’t do anything more about this. Our name is being dragged into it, but we don’t actually have a dog in the fight in a lot of ways.”