Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not strictly relevant to this committee but the wider scheme of things. In the changing housing situation I - and I am sure we all - have come across whereby there can be apartment blocks that cater very well for people - and approved housing bodies are central to those - but we get a lot of antisocial behaviour complaints. How those people get into the apartment blocks I do not know but whatever they do to get in there, they create havoc for other people who want to go about their business - whether it be older people or people who are at work all day and find that when they come home at night for a rest they cannot. There is loud music, banging of doors, and in many cases a continuous stream of people calling to one or two houses all night long with the consequence of doors banging and all kinds of noise. That reduces the quality of life for older people and the people who are at work all day. This results in people looking for a transfer out into a very congested market within a very short period. It makes life extremely difficult. I had three people from the one location just last weekend who all had the same problem. Their lives are being made intolerable and they want to go back to wherever they were. It was quieter and that is what they were looking for. We need to keep that in mind and the approved housing bodies need to tighten up on who gets through the system and if they are vetted, what way they are vetted, or not. We have to house everybody but at the same time while doing that we should try to maintain - insofar as possible - a regime that does not militate against people who just want to be left alone and do not want to have the attention of noisy neighbours and the kind of thing that goes with them.

It dramatically reduces the quality of life for people who feel vulnerable.