With council rents and private rents both rising, HAP tenants are squeezed from two directions

People living in private rentals who are reliant on subsidies such as the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) could be particularly hard-hit by proposed rent increases for social tenants, say councillors in Dublin city and Fingal.

Council tenants living in council-owned housing pay a “differential rent” based on percentage of their income. 

Tenants in private housing that get HAP pay this same differential rent to the council.

In theory, once these tenants on HAP pay their differential rent to the council, the council will then pay the “full” rent to their landlord. 

But what the council pays is limited by a cap, while rents keep rising – so it usually doesn’t actually cover their full rent.  

So, last year, a survey by the housing charity Threshold found that 74 percent of tenants receiving rent subsidies were paying extra, on top of what they pay the council, and what the council pays the landlord, to cover the gap.

Gareth Redmond, a research and policy officer at Threshold, says it is common for social tenants on rent subsidies to pay hundreds per month in “top-ups” to private landlords. 

Of those paying a top-up, 78 percent said they were struggling to pay their bills, the Threshold survey found.

Now, those tenants could face rent increases on two fronts – with the councils increasing their differential rents, and the annual increase of 2 percent a year levied by their private landlords which can roll into their top-up payment.

For a family relying on social welfare, who pay rent to the council and to their landlord, they could now face increases in both, he says. 

“I think in some cases it could be more than half their income,” says Redmond. “I don’t see how the sums will add up.”

Council rent increases

As part of Dublin City Council’s upcoming budget for 2026, council managers have proposed changes to social housing rents.

Among other shifts, they’re proposing an increase in the charge from 15 percent to 18 percent of the primary earner’s net income. 

Meanwhile, on Tuesday night, at their budget meeting, Fingal county councillors agreed to increase rents for social tenants from 12 percent of their income to 14.5 percent of their income, says Sinn Féin Councillor John Smyth.

The rent increases are unaffordable for many tenants, Smyth says, especially with major increases in the cost of living. “Loads of people are already pinned to their collar.”

Some people are putting off buying small essential items, says Smyth, who represents the Swords area. “There’s a huge amount of shame. People are really struggling.”

A Dublin City Council report says its hardship clause “will provide flexibility for the rent team to support those experiencing exceptional circumstances”.

This clause will also apply to tenants who receive HAP and pay top-ups to landlords and have exceptional circumstances, it says. 

People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy, who opposes the increase in the city, says that council officials have confirmed that HAP tenants will be affected by the rent increases. 

All the HAP tenants he knows are paying large top-up rents to landlords, he says, so he doesn’t think the council can or would apply discretion to all of them. 

“A lot of people are struggling at the same time,” he says. “So it’s not clear how that would work.”

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said it will do what it can to help HAP tenants.  

“Where existing HAP tenants are in financial difficulty every effort will be made to provide the support required to maintain the tenancy and ensure that it is affordable and sustainable for the household,” he said.

If the tenant is getting the maximum HAP payment, council staff can consider applying the hardship clause or decreasing the tenant’s differential rent, he said. 

Already topping up

HAP is a subsidy for tenants who are eligible for social housing but stuck in the private-rental sector.

For those on the scheme, the council pays most of the rent directly to the landlord. 

Tenants pay councils a contribution, based on their household income and in line with the amount that they would pay if they were in a council home.

But, if the rent for the home is greater than a council’s threshold – which it usually is in Dublin – the tenant pays the balance, the difference between the threshold amount and the actual rent, directly to the landlord as a top-up. 

Top-ups can range from €50 a month to much more, Redmond of Threshold. “You can have tenants paying hundreds in top-ups.” 

Indeed, says Smyth, the Sinn Féin councillor. 

Councils only allow HAP tenants to top up by a certain amount but to secure the property some tenants will agree to pay more, he says. “They pay top-ups and may also have under-the-table deals with landlords.”

HAP tenants aren’t supposed to spend more than 3o percent of their total income on their rent, but these deals can push them up higher than that, as can rent increases.

Meanwhile, councils are also going to be asking HAP tenants for more money each month now.

Reddy, the People Before Profit councillor, said he is concerned that these increases on two fronts could push some families into homelessness. 

They just won’t be able to afford them, he says.

Improved maintenance?

Back in March, Dublin City Council kickstarted a review of social housing rents, saying the rents the council takes in don’t cover the costs of maintenance on its housing. 

“I think we need to look at a complete revision of the rent scheme and what that would mean,” said Frank d’Arcy, the council’s director of housing operations, at the council’s finance committee that month. 

The council took in €110 million last year in rents, but in the same year it shelled out €180 million on maintaining and administering the 29,000 or so homes it owns in the city, according to a report to councillors.

In Fingal, meanwhile, the council is spending 50 per cent more on housing maintenance, compared to 2020, and it expects those costs to continue to climb, a spokesperson said. 

“Housing now accounts for 37 percent of the council's spending, covering areas such as the delivery of new homes, repairs, grants, and homelessness services, so this new rental rate will help to ensure continuing maintenance and investment in our housing stock for current and future generations,” says the spokesperson. 

It also brings Fingal County Council more into line with the rental rates charged by other local authorities in Dublin, “whilst remaining well below the level considered to be affordable for social housing tenants”.

But HAP tenants won’t benefit from council’s promises to spend more on maintenance of social housing, says Smyth, the Sinn Féin councillor in Fingal. 

And there are major issues with minimum standards in HAP properties, he says – as identified by the Ombudsman. 

Some tenants are too scared to report issues to the council or the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) in case they are evicted, he says. 

Within the Dublin City Council area, more than 100 private-rental tenants have lost their homes since 2020 after they reported poor conditions, which their landlords didn’t fix, and so their rental subsidies were cut off.

“There is a select group of people making a fortune off this crisis,” says Smyth. “While every day we’re contacted by people who are really suffering.”