Dublin City Council has begun recording the number of racially-motivated attacks on vacant council houses. The move follows a significant rise in acts of vandalism on council properties since late last year. The council is the first local authority in the Republic to record this data.The attacks have taken place in areas where streets are marked out by tricolour flags flown on lamp-posts on main arteries, including in Ballymun, Coolock, Finglas and Cabra. Incidents generally occur when rumours spread about ethnic-minority families being allocated a vacant local-authority home. The rumours are often further fuelled by claims the ethnic-minority families have skipped housing lists ahead of white Irish families. In response, far-right agitators have daubed graffiti on the exterior walls of the properties. The slogans painted include “Irish only or it burns”, “Muslims will be shot” and “House our own”.[ ‘House our own’: How the far right targets Dublin’s council housesOpens in new window ]Garda sources say while the attacks are hate crimes and the work of the far right, they suspect gangland involvement in a small number of incidents. In Finglas, north Dublin, gardaí strongly suspect houses have been vandalised under the instructions of a man with links to the local drugs trade as part of an attempt to control a council estate.“A trend emerged in 2025 with graffiti and other more targeted attacks on properties and we have started to monitor these increases,” Dublin City Council said.It said a decision was then made to record each attack. There were 14 attacks last year and 10 in the first four months of 2026.The council said persistent vandalism had led it to board up some houses with steel shutters. In each case, the Garda was notified and information relayed to any family offered the properties.Local councillors were also informed of the incidents in a bid to disseminate accurate information because, in many cases, local or online “rumours” about the supposed allocation of properties were “inaccurate”. The council said all housing was allocated in accordance with agreed policies.Minister for Housing James Browne said he was “concerned” about the attacks, stressing they were “illegal and deliberately intimidating, which is unacceptable”. It was also “obscene, in the middle of a housing crisis”, he said, that people would “destroy or damage” houses.Browne said he would like to see other councils formally track these attacks “so that we have the most accurate data to hand”.Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan described the incidents as hate crimes, saying each one was taken seriously and was being investigated by gardaí. The Garda said it was actively engaging with representative and advocacy groups “to support minority and diverse communities in Ireland”.