Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government in view of the Pullen and others versus Dublin City Council section 62 Judgement, when he intends to bring forward legislation to facilitate local authorities in refusing to house applicants who are involved in drug dealing and severe anti-social behaviour. [8293/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I am not aware of any court judgement that gives rise to consideration of an amendment of section 14 of the Housing (scellaneous Provisions) Act 1997 , which provides that a housing authority may refuse to allocate, or defer the allocation of, a dwelling to a person on specified grounds, including that the authority considers that the person is or has been engaged in anti-social behaviour or that an allocation to that person would not be in the interest of good estate management. Section 1 of the 1997 Act defines “anti-social behaviour” to include drug dealing and “estate management” to include the avoidance, prevention or abatement of anti-social behaviour.

The court case referred to relates to section 62 of the Housing Act 1966, which sets out the procedure for repossession of a dwelling by a housing authority. Dublin City Council has appealed the High Court ’s 2008 judgement in that case to the Supreme Court. I refer to the reply to Question No. 462 of 12 February 2013, which sets out the position regarding the 2012 Supreme Court judgement in 2 other cases relating to section 62 of the 1966 Act.