Fórsa has demanded that Dublin City Council (DCC) management retract comments made at a recent meeting of the Council’s housing committee where it was alleged that estate management for a new housing scheme in Inchicore will be outsourced.  

The meeting was reported on in The Dublin Inquirer. In the article several statements attributed to a member of senior management in DCC mentioned outsourcing of estate management.  

Fórsa represents workers in DCC estate management, who support tenants and manage building maintenance in DCC housing complexes, and caretakers who are members of the union’s Municipal Employees’ division.  

Comments were made implying that this would be necessary to mitigate risk due to the cost of the development, and that a housing development serviced by private operators might be more appealing to tenants. 

Last Friday, 31st January, Fórsa Senior Vice President Julie Flood, Convenor of the Municipal Employees’ Division Tommy Murtagh and official Maura Calahan sent a joint letter to DCC CEO Richard Shakespeare requesting a  retraction and apology,  

The letter noted that the remarks have caused great upset to members in DCC and called the statements: “outrageous in both tone and content”. The letter also underlined that there had been no prior consultation in regard to potential outsourcing of estate management. 

They said “The most basic requirement for any such proposal is prior consultation with all of the stakeholders, obviously including trade unions. There has been no such engagement on this matter.”  

Julie Flood said: “Council staff working in housing and estate management work incredibly hard despite being under resourced and working with tight budgets and at times impossible tasks. The housing crisis in Ireland keeps getting worse. This development is the Council’s first cost rental public housing scheme, and there’s no doubt that when it is up and running its maintenance should be managed by DCC.”  

Tommy Murtagh said: “It’s insulting to imply that our members can’t provide services of a level that would appeal to future tenants. By saying that outsourcing is the only way to have “well-managed, well-looked after rental accommodation” DCC has revealed it doesn’t have faith in its own staff. The CEO should apologise now for this slight on key public service workers.”

Maura Calahan, Fórsa assistant general secretary, said: “Estate management is currently seriously under-resourced. It’s not possible to deliver the level of service required to maintain current DCC housing schemes. Rather than talking about outsourcing in future complexes, management should urgently address current under- resourcing.”  

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