Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Private Members' motion put forward by Fine Gael. I wish to comment on the Government's proposed amendment to the motion. This is an area which requires legislation. We should be critical of developers, speculators and the private management companies that are ripping off people living in apartment blocks. None of that is reflected in the amendment. I urge Deputies to vote in favour of the Sinn Féin amendment.

The amendment includes much of what the Fine Gael motion contained and adds to it. Good housing is one of the most important elements of a healthy society. It is crucial to have proper regulated housing and in particular regulated management companies. Such regulation should be part of a robust tenant protection regime. We have long advocated the introduction of this legislation, which would provide that. Irish republicans have always believed the ability to rent one's home under fair conditions, with fixity of tenure or outright ownership to be a social good and part of the birthright of Irish people. From the just demands of the 19th century Land League and the 20th century civil rights movement, housing rights have been the touchstone of our struggle for generations, and will remain so into the 21st century. Combating the scourge of management companies is an extension of this struggle.

We recognise it is necessary to have management bodies in blocks of flats and apartments. However, Sinn Féin is opposed to the involvement of private for-profit management companies in the maintenance of roads and common open space, which in traditional housing estates have normally been the responsibility of local government. Such services should be paid for through direct progressive taxation. The main problem with private management companies is that they impose a form of double taxation through the imposition of fees and therefore are a stealth tax. It is fundamentally inequitable that some residents pay for a service, while their neighbours receive it free of charge. For-profit management companies should not be allowed to extort thousands of euro from people in housing estates towards the upkeep of an area and the provision of essential services when these should be the responsibility of local authorities. All public areas should be in the care of local authorities and never outsourced to private management.

At present, although they are subject to company law, such private estate management companies are unregulated and company law does not adequately serve to prevent the unethical practices they are engaged in. Many specific problems are associated with their proliferation in the Twenty-six Counties, in particular the virtual entire lack of accountability to the residents who pay for their services, as well as the fact that the fees charged are often exorbitant and subject to enormous increases. I have heard of increases of up to 300% in a single year, without any corresponding improvement in service, which is nothing short of a licence to print money. This cannot be allowed to continue. Tenants should be able to participate directly in the running of not-for-profit management companies, co-operatives or whatever — there are many models to follow. Local authority funding should be provided to foster community engagement projects in the running and co-operation of estate management. The current situation leaves no room for tenant participation, when management or landlords control the voting procedures. It is disgracefully unfair that a company can increase its fees and ensure grave hardship for those who have to pay them. Furthermore, it is disgracefully unfair when a management company can charge exorbitant fees and not even provide the services for which tenants are paying. We saw an example in Tyrellstown, Dublin 15, when tenants were left for years without a suitable water tower as the service was being run by a private management company. To add insult to injury, while the supply was inadequately managed, the water became contaminated with e.coli.

A form of management company is unavoidable for some apartment blocks, but in the event, such companies should be run on a not-for-profit basis and cover only structural insurance, internal communal areas and walled gardens. The Government must implement legislation to ensure that these fees are not then foisted upon the tenant when the development is incomplete. He or she should not have to shoulder the construction costs for the developers, as has been the case in some instances. It is imperative that legislation is introduced to regulate such companies as company law is clearly not enough. They are unregulated entities to which tenants are forced to buy into since they have no other legal option. In the Bructailt estate, in Nenagh, County Tipperary, residents who had no part of the management company, were faced with solicitors' letters when they tried to take action to extract themselves from their present situation. In Castlecurragh, Blanchardstown, in 2006 a management company was established by Fingal County Council in which both of its directors were employees of the company. This company then proceeded to charge a legal fee of €25 per household for the sole purpose of prosecuting local residents. This came about after one resident had successfully won a case against the management company. As the company wished to appeal the decision to a higher court, it proceeded to charge the legal costs to the residents. That is a disgrace and meant the residents were effectively paying the company to sue themselves. This is a farcical scenario, but just one of many such examples. The onus is on the Government to urgently introduce legislation that will combat all such unjust situations, not just some. Builders and developers regularly fail to complete the work on housing developments — mainly footpaths, road surfacing, road markings, drainage, landscaping, builders' rubble and waste disposal. There are quite a number of other examples of where such companies and developers have neglected to complete the work, as they should have. The money given in service and management charges is often unaccounted for — this is the biggest disgrace — in terms of how it is spent. Tenants frequently ask questions such as whether the gates were fixed, why the lift was inoperable for months on end, if the wall was painted and the rubble collected. Many residents ask such questions but do not get the answers from the management companies. Costs need to be more transparent so that the already cash-strapped home owner knows that he or she is not being ripped off. That is a reasonable demand for anybody to make.

Housing policy in Ireland has, for a very long time, been fundamentally inequitable and unbalanced in a number of respects, and that needs to change. This is one of the ways in which that change can be brought about. The number of elements contained in the Sinn Féin amendment improve on the Fine Gael motion, and I welcome that. There has been an overemphasis on the financial gains to be made from housing at the expense of social housing, which is central to the well-being of the nation. The private property speculator, the developer and the rental sectors are being enormously subsidised by the State at taxpayers' expense. More people are being driven into the hands of management companies and the people behind them, many of whom are developers who see this as another way to extract more money from those trying to buy their own homes. The decrease in social and affordable housing is pushing people into the private rental sector where they lack security of tenure or forcing them to dangerously overmortgage or into crowded accommodation with their extended families. They are then forced to pay astronomical fees to private management companies which sometimes do not even provide the basic services. The big business management companies, private property speculators and developers once again line their pockets at taxpayers' expense. The legislation is long overdue and must contain all the elements I have included in the amendment I have proposed to the Government's amendment.

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