Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to concentrate on two aspects of the Bill, the first being the termination of local authority tenancies. Section 62 of the Housing Act 1966 has a long history of litigation before our superior courts, going back more than ten years at this stage. As Senators will know, that section gave the relevant council wide-ranging, unfettered and summary powers to deal with tenants whom they considered to be in breach of their tenancy agreements. This more often than not concerned allegations of anti-social behaviour and, to a lesser extent, non-payment of rent. While I acknowledge the more recent decision of the Supreme Court in Donegan v.Dublin City Council, the matter began with a decision of the Supreme Court in 2005 in a case that had already come before the District and Circuit Courts. That decision was in the case of Dublin City Council v.Fennell. The council won that case on what could be described as a technicality, given that the Supreme Court held that the European Convention on Human Rights Act did not have retrospective effect.
Then came the High Court case of Pullen and Othersv.Dublin City Council, in which two judgments were delivered, in 2008 and 2009 respectively. In the first of those judgments the judge found that the State body - in other words, the local authority - had breached its statutory duty under section 3(1) of the ECHR Act 2003 in seeking to evict the plaintiffs from their home without affording them certain procedural rights. Those rights were, of course, in the nature of a review or appeal. The court awarded €20,000 to each of the plaintiffs on account of the distress, anxiety, loss of reputation and damage suffered. The second judgment concerned what injunctive reliefs were open to the court in the case and do not concern us here.
Lastly, we have the decision in Donegan, handed down in 2012, on which the revisions to section 62 contained in this legislation are based. While I acknowledge that the Department wanted the conclusive guidance of the Supreme Court before advancing amending legislation, it was surely obvious to them, as it was to legal practitioners in the area, that such legislation was warranted some years ago. This time lag again illustrates the very great need for the soon-to-be-established Court of Appeal. I wish to pay tribute to the former Minister for Justice and Equality for bringing about the establishment of such a court.
In regard to this Bill, it seems to me to provide warranted safeguards in regard to tenancy warnings and repossessions. I am glad to see that in regard to repossessions, an application to the District Court, appealable to the Circuit Court, is to be the way in which such matters are handled. It is positive that in place of granting the possession order to the local authority, the court may instead, if it so wishes, grant an exclusion order against an individual without affecting the right of the other members of the family to remain in the dwelling. It is a sensible provision. I also welcome the provision allowing for some or all of the proceedings relating to possession orders to be held in camera, given the sensitive matters that will be considered. Given the various decisions of our superior courts on this issue, the Bill is a very good response to the issue and gives a workable right of appeal to tenants while preserving and protecting the ability of local authorities to deal with anti-social behaviour and the non-payment of rent.
The second issue I wish to address is the housing assistance payment. This is the most radical shake-up of State family housing support in decades. It will, for the first time, allow those in receipt of housing assistance payment to take up employment, something current rent supplement recipients cannot do. At present, working families who work more than 30 hours per week are not entitled to the supplement. This Bill will do away with that requirement and allow full-time work. We are all aware of the difficulties faced by working families. This Bill will help them. Threshold, the voluntary housing assistance organisation, has strongly welcomed the HAP.

This is important, given the disinformation on this matter. Our party has discussed it a great deal. When responding to this debate, I hope the Minister of State will comment on her commitment in respect of the regulation.

During the Lower House's debate last week, a Member of the Opposition stated that we should not tackle anti-social behaviour because doing so could create homelessness. I was a member of a local authority for almost a quarter of a century. We were powerless to do anything about anti-social behaviour in local authority houses. At long last, we now have a legal mechanism. The greatest fear of anyone partaking in anti-social behaviour is that he or she might be put out onto the side of the road. This is only right. We need the big stick because these people have been running riot in council housing estates across the country for years, frightening people out of their wits and destroying local residents associations and goodwill while we have been unable to do anything about them. A Government has finally decided to do something about this situation. I commend it in that regard. No longer will such people take control of and ruin local authority estates, be it through drugs or other means.

I commend what the Minister of State is doing in this Bill and look forward to her response to my comments on the housing assistance payment, HAP. I hope to see a house building stimulus package in the next budget.