Update from Mike Allen
The Public Participation Network (PPN) is a collective of almost a thousand groups and organisations, active in the Dublin City area, working to improve the quality of life for those who live, work, study and visit the capital.
The network has three main objectives: to share information and capacity building training, so that the member groups can participate more in local authority decision making. To that end, Dublin City Council invited 15 PPN Representatives to sit on 7 Strategic Policy Committees (SPCs), covering such areas as housing, traffic, climate, culture, planning, economic development and finance. There are a further 5 PPN Representatives on the Local Community Development Committee (LCDC), and the PPN is steered by a group of 9 Secretariat, which is supported by 2 members of staff.
Mike Allen is from the member group Focus Ireland, which is from the Community and Voluntary Pillar. He was nominated and elected to the seat in 2024, and this is his second term. The other two pillars of the PPN are social inclusion and environment, and groups can choose which pillar they would like to belong to. The Environment Pillar member groups must be ratified by the Irish Environment Network (IEN), and it is the pillars who nominate and elect Representatives to seats.
Mike sits on the Housing and Social Inclusion SPC, alongside two other PPN representatives: Oisin Oreilly, Outhouse (social inclusion pillar) and Sinead Murphy, Meeting Place Club (social inclusion pillar), and recently Mike has three updates he would like to share not only with his pillar, but with the wider PPN.
- On 18 August 2026 Mike wrote to all the Housing Reps in all 31 PPNs across the country, about the Housing Development Action Plans (HDAPs), which each local authority had been instructed to draw up, by the Department of Housing. Mike’s day job, at Focus Ireland, had given him some knowledge about the HDAPs and he was happy to share this knowledge with his counterparts across the country. Two online, zoom meetings were reasonably well attended, and the group decided to write to Minister Browne, about the lack of engagement inherent in the process initiated. An email was sent and a reply acknowledging the email was received. This national Housing Reps group will meet again shortly.
- On 14 September 2026, Mike abstained from a vote in the Housing SPC on Cllr Conor Reddy and Cllr Hazel De Nortuin’s motion to “call for reversal of rent increases and review of alternative revenue raising mechanisms” for Dublin City Council tenants. His reason for abstaining was due, in part to the fact that Focus Ireland is a landlord and would be impacted by a decision to decrease the increase in rents. While the other two PPN Representatives voted Yes to the motion, it’s of note that the motion now needs to revert to the full council for voting.
- Mike has been invited onto the Lord Mayor’s Taskforce on Homelessness, which the Lord Mayor Cllr Daryl Bannon has recently established. The other members of the taskforce are representatives of the political parties, and three representatives from the Homeless Network. Mike is there a PPN representative from the Housing SPC, representing a homeless Non-Government Organisation (NGO). Mike will update his pillar (through the pillar working group), and the wider PPN (through the Bulletin and Secretariat updates) about this taskforce.
The PPN is set up so that member groups of specific pillars, might ask the Representatives to put forward views, comments and questions to the SPCs, on their groups’ behalf. The method we use for managing this work, is through the pillar working groups, and so if you have any questions for Mike, please contact PPN staff.
