Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

That the Government has enacted no legislation in this regard is extraordinary. For 15 years, large apartment blocks have been built in cities. They spread throughout Dublin city and county. Limerick, Galway and Cork have experienced this phenomenon, as have other cities and towns to a lesser extent. They have one factor in common, namely, management companies meant to take care of apartment blocks and to deal with services. The manner in which this matter has been dealt is disgraceful.

Too frequently and for too long, management companies have been controlled by apartment developers. They view the companies not as providing a service to those to whom apartments have been sold, but as a means to rip them off. They fail to provide essential services and when management companies controlled by developers get around to holding annual general meetings, they try to hold them at times and locations that render attendance impossible for 95% or 100% of apartment owners. The management company of an apartment block called Parkview in Stepaside in my constituency decided to hold its AGM at 7 p.m. on a weekday in a hotel in the city centre, knowing full well that it would be impossible for working residents to attend. I do not know how many appeared, but I would be surprised if it was more than six.

That there has been no legislation to date is scandalous. I have listened to other speakers' comments. Every Deputy has been the recipient of complaints from people who found themselves helpless when confronted by management companies. Agents appointed by developers to run management companies become the developers' playthings. If the developer is involved in a variety of developments, the agent knows he or she will get further fees from running management companies if he or she does what the developer wants. If the developer does not like what the agent is doing, the agent will be sacked.

With the exception of those controlled by apartment purchasers, management companies comprise the new feudal landlords of the 21st century and regard themselves as lording it over those who have had the misfortune to purchase apartments without an understanding of how the companies operate. This past week saw the extraordinary event of a developer advertising new apartments for sale and, to ensure visitors purchased new apartments rather than second-hand apartments, arranging through a management company for notices advertising apartments for resale to be taken down. The company regarded itself as free to remove the "for sale" signs. According to the lease terms, the permission of the management company was necessary to erect signs. On the basis that no one was aware of this requirement, the company sent in a crane and men climbed up it to remove the "for sale" notices. It is a disgrace.

The other matter of concern for which management companies and local authorities bear significant responsibility is that of visitor parking. I wish to sound a note of caution to anyone intending to buy an apartment anywhere. The first question should not be about what parking is available to owners, the answer to which will probably be a single parking space. Rather, the first question should be about visitor parking. A development of more than 650 apartments in my constituency has only 24 visitor parking spaces. Local authorities should be conditioning apartment developments to provide sufficient parking to facilitate visiting families and friends. Some are not doing so on an ideological basis of which the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources might approve, namely, to encourage the use of public transport over private transport. It is a fantastic theory, but it does not work with a lousy public transport system, which might not even exist in some of the areas in question. Before we adopt an ideological theory in which people will be forced Soviet-style to use public transport, we need a public transport system that will take people to where they want to go. For example, if one lives in Dundrum, Stillorgan or Rathfarnham, one may not have regular access to a bus service to visit friends or relatives in Stepaside. The Dublin local authorities — I single out the authority with which I am familiar, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council — have much to answer for in allowing large apartment developments without requiring that parking spaces be put in place.

There is an arrogance on the part of developers who do not tell purchasers about available visitor parking and pretend it will be adequate. When people buy apartments, they tend to consider the general road infrastructure in the vicinity and presume the availability of a reasonable amount of visitor parking. The developer does not inform them that, once all the apartments have been sold, double yellow lines will be painted along the road sections not specifically set aside for parking spaces. This was done by a developer in the Stepaside area. A passing garda who did not know better gave everyone parked on the double yellow lines tickets. It took my intervention to discover that the local authority and Garda had not sanctioned the lines — it was a unilateral act on behalf of the developer or management company — and to communicate with the Garda, not just to cancel tickets, but to refund those who had paid. It is not good enough that people find themselves living in these circumstances.

Having watched the debate on television in my office and read the Ministers' scripts, I am not happy. The Government has made a series of promises to the effect that it may legislate after the Law Reform Commission publishes its final report. I know what happens to those reports. Approximately 50 LRC reports are gathering dust in various departmental offices. If the drafting of the required legislation has not commenced, the likelihood of the LRC report producing legislation this year or next year is between zero and minus 1,000. Will the Government explain why no Bills have been drafted and published despite the original consultation paper? The matter might be complex, but it is not rocket science. The lives of tens of thousands of people are being diminished. They paid too much for poorly constructed apartments and local authorities failed to ensure proper conditions were imposed in terms of noise pollution and visitor parking. The least the Government could do is to provide protection against cowboy management companies controlled by developers diminishing further the value and enjoyment people get from their properties.

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