Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The local authority will not assume responsibility for these estates until they are finished to a satisfactory standard. The estates are left unfinished or some units are retained by the developer so that residents do not have the facility to assert themselves in the direction and control of the management company.

There may be a case for setting up a management company in an apartment block to look after a specified and narrow set of services which are regulated and whose fees are regulated. However, a scenario can arise where an estate consisting of one block of apartments surrounded by a few hundred houses is subject to this arrangement. Rates have been abolished but the present situation is more penal than rates ever were.

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