Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise an issue that appeared on the front page of yesterday's edition of the Irish Examinerto the effect that there were 10,000 complaints of anti-social behaviour to local authorities nationwide over a two-year period.In that two-year time period only 12 evictions arose. That level of complaint seems to indicate that local authority officials are spending a huge amount of time dealing with this issue. We need to have a debate on whether there is adequate legislation and support for local authority officials in dealing with anti-social behaviour. The vast majority of tenants in local authority houses are law abiding and want to live their lives in a normal way. It might be one out of 500 who causes a particular problem not only for their immediate neighbours, but for the entire neighbourhood.

When I was first elected to Cork City Council in 1996, I found that the tenancy agreements people were asked to sign were totally inadequate. The local authorities had very little say in real terms in dealing with this issue. As a result of raising this at the time at Cork City Council and, in fairness, with the support at the time of Deputy Micheál Martin who was the leader of the Fianna Fáil group in the council at the time, amending legislation was introduced. As we are now 13 years on, we now need to ascertain if that legislation is adequate. We need to put in place the necessary supports for people in housing departments in local authorities throughout the country. This amount of money should not be consumed in this way when local authority officials could do much more in trying to provide adequate housing for the many people on the waiting list.

We should have a debate in the House with the Minister. We should also have reports from local authorities outlining the changes they want. Are they getting the necessary support from the courts? We need to look at that issue. I ask the Leader to organise a debate in the House.