There was a total of 538 incidents of anti-social behaviour reported to the local authority
59 incidents of squatters reported by council
Almost 60 incidents of squatters in council housing were reported in Tallaght last year.
There were a total of 538 incidents of anti-social behaviour reported to South Dublin County Council’s housing department for Tallaght for 2025.
Just three incidents of joyriding were reported across the whole year, however there were 95 incidents of drug activity, 73 incidents of violence, intimidation or harassment and 13 neighbour disputes reported to the council.
The figures presented at the Tallaght Area Committee meeting on Monday, February 23, also show there were 59 incidents of squatters/illegal occupiers reported to SDCC last year.
However, council housing officer Fiona Hendley said that “a lot of” this figure is occupants left in council housing after the primary tenant has passed away.
“Sometimes when a tenant is deceased, that’s the occupant that’s left in the house that’s looking to do a transfer of tenancy,” she told councillors.
“Some cases are ongoing, you have some people trying to succeed the tenancy that weren’t on the rent, so we have a process to go through, we serve an abandonment notice and such because they can’t just go in and stay there, so that’s what that figure is,” she explained.
Cllr Louise Dunne (SF) asked if the figures of occupiers looking to succeed tenancies and actual illegal occupiers or squatters could be reported separately, as they seemed to be “two different things”.
“They are two different things but that’s just the way it’s been categorised,” Ms Hendley explained, but she said she would see could she “split it out as a subcategory, because it does sound like we have loads of illegal occupation when we really don’t”.
While Cllr Paddy Holohan (Ind)noted it was “great to see” zero incidents of racism reported for the second year in a row, Cllr Dunne said it was her opinion that this was actually “under-reported”.
“A lot of people don’t like to report due to intimidation, due to harassment, due to threats so I think when we look at these, we can always take them with a pinch of salt because we know the level of anti-social behaviour that goes on in our communities,” she said.
Ms Hendley acknowledged that this could be the case, highlighting that there are “channels where people can report anonymously to us” but added that that it’s “good to see no official complaints in that regard”.
Council staff carried out 532 house calls and inspections off the back of complaints in 2025, serving a total of 13 abandonment notices and issuing 121 warnings to tenants.
A total of 54 surrenders of council properties were obtained throughout the year.
Ms Hendley also informed councillors that an extra housing officer was appointed earlier this year, which was “a welcome addition to the two anti-social community safety officers and the anti-social officer working in the area”.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
