Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

-----and gangsterism. As Deputy Ciarán Lynch stated, there is no strategy to address the problem. We need action. People should behave in a normal and reasonable way. Someone might turn music up too loud the odd time or upset people with a party, but these things happen and are not consistent. Sometimes, all one needs to do is look at a house to know. A local authority house costs a great deal of money, yet it could be in tatters and loud music could be coming from it. Drug dealing could be destroying other families in the estate. Children might not be allowed out because of intimidation.

A signed tenancy agreement is a legal document. The matter should be addressed in this respect. The agreements should be changed to oblige people to behave in a normal and reasonable way. I am not saying that someone cannot open his or her mouth. Everyone living next door to anti-social behaviour knows what it is. People attending our clinics are fearful due to intimidation. Telling them to put their complaints in writing to a local authority is all very well, but the average person wants to live a quiet life and is afraid to make a written complaint. A housing inspector should knock on the offenders' doors and warn them that, if they do not adhere to the tenancy agreements that they signed, tidy their front gardens, remove all of the rubbish and stop being nuisances to the area, action will be taken. If there is no improvement, the authorities should go to court to get eviction orders.

Why should the majority of decent, ordinary people live with such horror every day of the week? Transferring the offenders from one estate to another would do no good because they would just continue acting in the same way. People must know that they are subject to rules and regulations. It should be pointed out to them when they sign their tenancy agreements that these are conditions with which they must comply, not aspirations.

No housing authority will devise a strategy to address anti-social behaviour. The tenancy agreement should be the strategy and outline what one can and cannot do in a local authority house rented from the taxpayer. It is only fair and proper that ordinary, decent people who want to live their lives properly should not need to put up with what is, in many cases, gangsterism. Such behaviour has previously led to flying squads threatening people and taking the law into their own hands. That is not the way to solve this problem either.

I ask that the House consider this matter seriously, as it is one issue in which the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, as the housing supremo, should insist on the wording of tenancy agreements. Likewise, it should insist that local authorities adhere to agreements and take action.

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