Figures given to Independent Councillor Patrick Quinlan by the Director of Housing in Fingal County Council show that 35.6% of housing allocations to date in 2026 have been to persons of other than Irish nationality.
Given that at least 7% of the population of the country, having attained citizenship, are recorded as Irish citizens despite being born abroad, that means that in excess of 40% those allocated a house in Fingal so far this year were foreign born.
Of the total of 393 persons allocated houses so far this year, 253 are Irish citizens, 78 citizens of other EU/EEA states, 61 from outside of Europe, and one from the United Kingdom. (The latter figure is of note as the response to housing demographics from deniers of realty is sometimes “Oh, most of them were born in the north or are of Irish descent who were born in Britain.” Not so.)
The corresponding statistics for 2025 show that 661 houses were allocated to Irish citizens; 187 to households headed by an EU/EEA national, 109 from outside of the EU/EEA and two from the UK.
More than 40% of housing allocations in Fingal go to persons born outside the state
Which means that since the beginning of 2025 that 32.4% – just under a third – of social housing in Fingal has been allocated to non-Irish citizens. If we apply the usual metric that accounts for persons from outside of the state who have acquired Irish citizenship the true proportion for houses allocated to households headed by a person born outside the state is between 40% and 43%.
That metric is tacitly recognised by the state as in Census 2022 it was recorded that just under 20% of the population had been born outside of the state. 12% of the population had other than Irish citizenship. A gap of around 8%.
The gap in Finglas according to the 2022 Census was higher. Of a total population in the administrative area of 333,506, 89,734 – or 27% – had been born outside of the state. 17% were recorded as being citizens of states other than Ireland.
Councillor Quinlan has several times before requested a breakdown on the demographics of housing lists in Fingal. He has also tabled motions requesting the same information. They were all rejected on the basis that the collation of such data would take “an unreasonable amount of time.”
Commenting on the information, Councillor Quinlan stated that “I committed to getting this data released and I’m happy to have delivered on that campaign promise. Now that we have the figures, they are as bad as we thought.
“The real picture could be worse as these figures include people who became citizens and nobody has counted how many did so while they waited for an allocation. ”
Why all of this might impact on the plan to build a ‘new city’ at Dunsink
On October 19, ,Fingal County Council will meet to decide on the latest version of the controversial plan for a ‘new city’ in the ‘Dunsink Quarter’ whose estimated eventual size is 18,500 accommodation units – mostly in apartment blocks – with a potential population of 60,000.
Councillor Quinlan, on foot of hundreds of submissions from concerned local residents and community organisations, has tabled dozens of motions critical of the plan and the massive and detrimental impact that it will have on the existing communities and the local habitats and amenity areas.
The fact that such a large proportion of housing in Fingal is already being allocated to non-Irish people and that this is certain to increase given current population projections underlines why there is so much concern regarding the project to build what would currently be the sixth largest city in the state.
Questions need to be answered regarding the disproportionate demographics
As more information becomes available on housing lists and as more people come to realise that the relevant statistic is place of birth rather than citizenship, a number of questions clearly need to be answered.
For one thing, the over-representation of persons born overseas on local authority housing lists calls into doubt the mainstream claim that mass immigration is an unqualified financial benefit. The same applies to other statistics related to areas which are clearly a significant cost on the state and in which non Irish people are again disproportionately represented.
In the current context, from what we have gleaned in the complete absence of official figures, we know that large numbers of people who have been in IPAS accommodation are being prioritised for scarce social housing.
State asylum policy appears increasingly reliant on placing applicants in residential housing
The state has clearly decided that the private contracting of IPAS centres is no longer central to its accommodating applicants for International Protection. It is very rarely now that new applications are registered with local authorities by private companies for change of use to asylum accommodation.
Local community resistance was largely responsible for this shutdown as was greater scrutiny of contracts over issues highlighted by ourselves and others. The state has made clear that it now prefers large state owned centres such as the one at Citywest and others which had been earmarked for that purpose such as Thornton Hall which is currently being held up by legal issues.
It is also apparent from various NGO and other documents that it is deemed preferable that persons who had been in IPAS centres are “integrated into the community” by placing them in residential social and rental accommodation.
That is clearly taking place but to what extent remains unclear other than some hard evidence that AHBs such as De Paul are clearly prioritising people who had been in IPAS direct provision centres. There appears to be a large level of stealth involved in this and it has been notable that when communities in Stamullen and Finglas have become aware of this that the Department and others have quickly backed away.
To what extent the new strategy will survive such opposition in the face of the evidence from the housing lists, and in Fingal from the allocations, is uncertain.