Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The ten days is a minimum, not a maximum, period. I will be advising housing authorities that, generally speaking, they should give longer notice than the minimum period but occasionally there will be cases where the minimum notice only can be given because of the necessity for the housing authority to move quickly to repossess the dwelling.

Section 62 of the Housing Act 1966, which is being replaced by sections 12, 13 and 17, does not specify any minimum notice period for the housing authority's warrant application. It is worth noting also that each of the possession proceedings covered by the amendment includes provision for the court to adjourn the proceedings as it thinks fit. The court can adjourn the proceedings if it believes more times is needed, with or without conditions, and it could use this power where a tenant claims that he or she was not given sufficient time to prepare for the hearing of the possession application.

I refer to a Supreme Court case, Dublin City Council v.Fennell in 2005, in which there was an observation in the court that section 62 of the Housing Act 1966 had survived constitutional and judicial scrutiny up to that point not least because of the obvious needs of a housing authority to be able to manage effectively and control its housing stock without being unduly restricted or fettered while so doing. The same considerations apply to the possession proceeding now proposed, and that is why, in the case of a breach of a tenancy agreement such as anti-social behaviour that has serious detrimental effects on the quality of life of other people in the locality, section 12(3)(b) provides that a housing authority is required to give notice of a possession order application to the tenant concerned not later than the time it makes the application.

I stress that this is a minimum, not a maximum, period and that there are some cases where the local authority needs to move quickly and that the court can, if it deems it appropriate, provide for more time for the tenant.

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