Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

The ideological bent of the Taoiseach and the Government over the past nine years has been precisely to produce the kind of housing market and system which we have with 200,000 units being built over the past three years and more than 50,000 people still on housing lists for ten, 12, 13, 14 or 15 years, as the Minister is aware. The traditional housing system involved water drainage, open spaces, lighting, streets, footpaths and all the basic services of a new estate. They were maintained by the developer under the supervision of a local authority. As public representatives we often had lengthy battles to have estates taken over. I recall one estate in my constituency finally being taken over after ten or 12 years.

Imperfect as it was, that was the system. We now have a cruel, disgraceful abuse of young householders. This is the final attempt to suck the marrow from the bone of people desperately trying to put roofs over their heads, with fees of €200, €400, €600 or €800. Young people are bullied into paying these sums. What choice have they got? When the legal contract is put in front of one, involving the most important transaction in one's life, someone now points out that one needs to also sign another form. One may be signing one's life away for two or three years to the gangsters running this system, who may include close relatives of the developer or perhaps the foreman's son or some other relative who will then be able to levy the charges for another period. It is grotesque that while we have very settled, upmarket, well financed, high-income districts of our cities where people do not pay such charges and would stage a major revolution if they had to do so, young families coming into estates are forced to pay them.

Deputy Stagg correctly noted that much of this goes back to the farce of local administration whereby unelected county managers and planning managers could allow this development to take place. It is sad that Fingal County Council is one of the local authorities to the forefront in trying to offload key public services. A major objective of the next Government must be to introduce a decent system of local government with the election of the chief executive.

If a householder is asked to pay a private management company which is not providing the services being charged for, where does that householder stand legally? One case from the west Dublin area has come to my attention involving a householder threatened with legal action for withholding payment of charges, even though the householder ended up in hospital with water poisoning because the company had not tested the standard of the water and waste had leaked into underground storage tanks and poisoned the water. That happened just a few months ago in the Tyrellstown area. It is also outrageous in this case that residents will have to pay for the replacement equipment for the water supply to the estate even though they are already paying their management fees to the company involved and the water supply was poisoned for a full two weeks last June owing to negligence by the management company.

Householders in that estate face an annual fee of between €200 and €600 depending on the location or proximity to any green area in the estate. This fee could increase by any amount year to year as the contract is open-ended and states that amounts can vary with larger houses incurring larger fees than smaller houses. What the management company does with the money it collects is a mystery to the new residents. The grass is not cut regularly. The roads are not finished. They have not had their top covering and are in need of urgent resurfacing. The lights do not work on half the streets while the lights on other streets are on all day long. During the past 18 months this estate has had three different management companies overseeing service provision in the area. What mechanisms are in place for such charges in any residential estate? Can anybody set up a management company? That is just one of countless examples in the west and north side of the city. It is a disgraceful state of affairs. The Taoiseach and the Minister did know about it and it is shameful they did not take action to remedy it before it became a crisis for so many of our young constituents.

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