Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I support the motion and compliment Deputies Phil Hogan and Terence Flanagan on bringing it forward. I also thank my colleagues for allowing me to eat into their time. This is a very important issue, much more so than most of the political establishment believes. It affects 500,000 people, both homeowners and landlords. Some 4,000 units in my constituency of Dublin West are controlled by management companies and probably inhabited by approximately 12,000 people. Another 3,000 such units are planned.

I am affected by this in that I am a member of a management company and I pay a management fee. Thankfully, I am in a position where the owners control the management company, although it was not easy to take it over. I am happy to pay the fee — approximately €1,200 per year — for the service I get but that is only because I am a member of the group which controls it and decides what the money is spent on. If we want more, we pay more and if want less, we pay less.

We all accept there must be management companies in apartment buildings, although the concept is not confined to them. For houses and mixed developments the idea is more complicated. I heard the comments of Deputy Ciarán Lynch of the Labour Party, which I almost entirely agreed with, except for the proposal that management companies be banned from housing estates. I do not agree with that as some people want management companies in housing developments.

There are two examples in my constituency, Hollystown and Summerton, which the Minister will be familiar with and which are controlled by management companies. The people there very much want to have their landscaped lawns, gates and so on, and they should be allowed to have them. This is not a communist country and people should not be prohibited from having a management company should they so wish. That is not the case for the vast majority of people who are subject to management companies.

There are a few major problems and it is important we address them. It is not the case that most management companies are controlled by owners. In my constituency, for example, Menolly Homes, and Mr. Seamus Ross in particular, are developers well known to the party opposite. It writes into its memorandum and articles of association that the developer has 1,000 votes, with others having one vote per apartment. Another developer well known to the party opposite writes into the——

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