Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to help combat racism and racist anti-social behaviour on local authority housing estates and complexes. [46199/12]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Housing authorities have a range of statutory housing powers to assist them in dealing with anti-social behaviour in their housing stock, including anti-social behaviour motivated by racism. Among the powers available to housing authorities are the power to refuse to allocate, or to refuse to sell, a dwelling to a person engaged in anti-social behaviour and the power to seek a court order excluding a person engaged in anti-social behaviour from entering a local authority dwelling or estate for a period of up to 3 years. Each housing authority also has a statutory duty to adopt an anti-social behaviour strategy for the prevention and reduction of anti-social behaviour in its housing stock, which must provide for co-operation with other relevant bodies, notably the Gardaí, who have a range of measures in place to deal with allegations of racist behaviour generally.

The new housing legislation currently being developed in my Department will introduce a revised procedure to replace section 62 of the Housing Act, 1966, thus enabling housing authorities to recover possession of their dwellings from households engaged in anti-social behaviour. I will also, in the context of the new legislation, examine the scope for strengthening the other statutory powers of housing authorities for dealing with anti-social behaviour.