Friends of the Earth Backs Housing Rally, Urges Retrofits for Most Vulnerable

Friends of the Earth welcome national housing demonstration and demands Government prioritise investment in retrofitting of social housing and rental accommodation.

Friends of the Earth has welcomed Saturday’s demonstration in Dublin called by Community Action Tenants’ Union Ireland (CATU) regarding the ongoing Irish housing crisis [1]. As Friends of the Earth has repeatedly pointed out, the housing crisis and the climate crisis are directly linked.

Aaron Downey, Friends of the Earth's Campaign Lead on ‘Tenants for Climate Justice’ said: 

“The housing crisis is also a crisis of quality. Our social housing stock is left in chronic disrepair and current retrofitting policy does not prioritise those council tenants most at risk of energy poverty in the leakiest homes. Meanwhile, high rents across the private rental sector push people into renting damp, moldy homes as they take whatever accommodation they can get. All of this means people burning more fossil fuels to stay warm, with negative consequences for both people’s cost of living and health, and for polluting emissions.”

 

Friends of the Eart is demanding greater investment in the Local Authority Energy Efficiency Retrofit Programme on a multi-annual basis in the Budget in order to more effectively reach our national targets for social housing retrofitting and emissions reductions. For the Budget, Friends of the Eart is also calling for targeted grants for retrofitting properties with Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) tenancies in the private rental sector which have on average the lowest Building Energy Ratings (BER), on the condition of long-term leases being offered to tenants.

Jerry Mac Evilly, Campaigns Director in Friends of the Earth said:

“50% of HAP tenancies, which are private rental tenancies but for people who would otherwise be eligible for social housing, are in homes with a poor BER rating of D, E, F or G. In other words, these tenancies are in cold homes using more polluting fossil fuels. The right to live in a warm home should be just as important as the right to live without a leaky roof.”

 

Friends of the Eart is also calling for the introduction of minimum BERs across the private rental sector generally, on a phased basis targeting the worst performing buildings first, along with stronger security of tenure to protect people from ‘renovictions’ or rent hikes as a result of energy efficiency upgrades.

ENDS


Notes:

1. https://catuireland.org/catu-announce-national-housing-demo-for-july-5th-2025/ 
2. See https://data.cso.ie/table/HAP30