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Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 1 May 1997

Vol. 151 No. 7

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1996: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am pleased to present to the House the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1996, a measure that will help strengthen our capacity to tackle one of the most serious social challenges of our time. The Bill's primary purpose is to provide for a range of measures to help local authorities in addressing problems arising on their housing estates from drug dealing and related serious anti-social behaviour. The Bill forms part of a wider range of measures which are being undertaken by the Government to deal with the issue of drugs and related crime.

Before I elaborate on the specific measures in the Bill I wish to outline the background and context within which these measures are being brought forward. Every Member of the House is aware that the illegal drugs trade has damaged, even destroyed, many young lives and threatened the peace and stability of whole communities. The Government's approach to the problem is multifaceted. A package of tough and effective legislation is in place to expose and deal with those who traffic in illegal drugs.

The ministerial task force on measures to reduce the demand for drugs recommended a range of measures in areas of treatment, education and rehabilitation and estate improvements. These recommendations were accepted fully by the Government and £14 million was allocated to carry out a programme which is based in the communities that are most severely affected. To tackle the drug problem effectively we need to rebuild communities, improve them in terms of the physical and social infrastructure and revitalise them economically. To succeed we need to create a new dynamic and trust between statutory agencies and local communities.

I have repeatedly stressed to local authorities the importance of good estate management. Tenant participation is part and parcel of estate management, as is the importance of an integrated approach, drawing all interested bodies into the process. Considerable progress is being made in this regard and will continue to be made. The Bill must be seen as one element in a wider strategy which is aimed at building communities and making them safe from drugs. There is, I believe, broad agreement in the House that the extent to which the residents of many local authority estates have suffered at the hands of drug dealers, and those working with and for them, is unacceptable.

There is also, I believe, broad support for the main purpose of the Bill, which is to provide local authorities with improved legal powers to help them deal with drug dealing and serious anti-social behaviour in their estates. The Bill will assist local authorities to discharge their estate management function in a positive manner so that all local authority tenants may reasonably aspire to live in an estate that is free from drug dealing and associated violence.

We are all aware of the serious threat that drug dealing poses to individuals and to society. In areas where drug dealing gets a foothold, everyone is a potential victim. There is reason to believe that many major heroin dealers began their evil careers in local authority housing estates and that much of their nefarious activities are centred there. A Dublin Corporation report put the matter very well when it stated:

The victims of anti-social behaviour (including drugs-related activities) and their families endure enormous distress and are unable to enjoy peaceful occupation of their dwellings.

We must make it clear that the Government and the statutory agencies will no longer tolerate publicly funded housing being used as a base for drug pushing and related anti-social activity. We must ensure that a new generation of barons do not have local authority housing as a nursery unit in which to develop their ugly trade. We must ensure that those who are enriching themselves by bringing misery, distress and violence on their neighbours can no longer be allowed to undermine and destroy their communities. There is a duty on us as legislators to ensure that communities are no longer exposed to the menace of drug dealing by any deficiencies or constraints in the law.

Constraints and deficiencies have been identified through practical experience. Regrettably, the existing statutory response has come to be seen as ineffectual in the face of an increasing drug problem and, in recent times, some communities have sought to impose their own remedies. Particular issues of concern include: unsuitability of existing approaches in certain situations, for example, where the existing sanction of eviction may be too blunt and sweeping an instrument; lack of effective immediate action against squatting by persons engaged in anti-social activities; difficulties with the exchange of information between relevant authorities; slow procedures, for example, delays in service of summonses, and intimidation and risks to witnesses. The Bill seeks to rectify these deficiencies through a combination of increased powers, more targeted measures and more streamlined and effective procedures.

In preparing this legislation I have taken into account the experience of local authorities in their attempts to deal with anti-social behaviour in their estates. I met elected members of Dublin Corporation who represent many of the worst affected areas. They were emphatic about the need for urgent and effective measures. I or my officials also met representatives of other interests, including the voluntary housing sector. I have had the benefit of widely divergent views ranging, on the one hand, from unfounded fears about the possible impact of the Bill to, on the other, a concern that measures in the Bill do not go far enough. There has been extensive discussion of the measures in the Bill in the Oireachtas and beyond. I have given full and detailed consideration to the many views expressed. I was particularly pleased to be able to respond positively by way of amendments on Committee Stage in the other House to requests from the Irish Council for Social Housing to extend certain provisions of the Bill, notably the excluding order procedure, to housing provided by approved voluntary housing organisations. I was also pleased to be able to extend the provision preventing payments by squatters, etc., from creating tenancy rights to rented housing generally including lettings in the private rented sector.

The definitions of anti-social behaviour and estate management in section 1 are of particular significance and are central to the purposes of the Bill. They form the basis for the application of various powers under the Bill including excluding orders, vetting of tenancy applications and social welfare assistance. I have made every effort to frame these definitions as tightly as possible. Anti-social behaviour has been carefully defined with particular reference to drug dealing and related serious violence or threats of violence to individuals. I emphasise that possession of illegal drugs solely for personal use does not come within this definition, nor does vandalism or damage to property unless the damage was being used to intimidate or threaten.

There are two elements in the definition. This is essential because the measures in the Bill are designed to deal both with anti-social behaviour related to drug dealing and the serious violence and intimidation that is associated with drug dealing, both of which are in themselves offences under the criminal code. The activities included in the definition are very serious in nature and their effect must be to cause significant or persistent danger, injury, damage, etc., to persons rather than to property. Imprecise or potentially less serious concepts such as "nuisance" have been avoided in framing the definition.

The term "estate management" is defined as including the securing or promotion of the interests of tenants and other occupiers, whether individually or generally, in the enjoyment of their local authority houses and the avoidance, prevention or abatement of anti-social behaviour in that context. The term "good estate management" is a long standing concept in common law and in the landlord and tenant code, but it has not been defined in statute. The concept is being given specific statutory recognition in this Bill in a very positive way so that housing authorities can actively promote the interests of their tenants and work towards the avoidance, prevention or abatement of anti-social behaviour. The concept of good estate management is currently used by housing authorities as a reason for seeking repossession of dwellings where anti-social behaviour is involved.

Section 2 will help to reduce delays and difficulties which have been experienced in the serving of summonses in housing cases. This section provides that a summons may be served by ordinary post without first having to attempt service by registered post or any other method. The section also provides for summonses to be issued by a District Court clerk instead of having to be signed by a judge, a procedure that already applies in criminal cases. The wording of the section is in line with recently made rules of court in relation to the Domestic Violence Act, 1996.

The single most important measure in this Bill is probably the introduction of a new excluding order procedure. The relevant provisions are contained in sections 2 to 12. A local authority tenant will have the right to apply to the District Court for an excluding order against a member of his or her household who is engaged in anti-social behaviour. A housing authority will have power to seek an excluding order where it believes that the tenant would be intimidated from doing so. Excluding order proceedings can only be taken by housing authorities after consultation with the tenant and the local health board.

The excluding order procedure will allow a more targeted response than is currently available to local authorities. Up to now the only action a local authority could take in cases of serious anti-social behaviour was to seek to have the entire household evicted with both innocent and guilty subjected to the same legal sanction. The new procedure is intended to meet a situation where only one or some of the members of a household are engaged in serious anti-social behaviour. It also recognises the reality that there are instances where not only does the tenant not have effective control or influence over an individual in the household but that the tenant and the rest of the household may be intimidated by that individual. Hence the provision for local authority intervention where a tenant is too fearful to take proceedings themselves.

Under section 3 the court will have power to exclude a person engaged in anti-social behaviour from any specified house or housing estate and to prohibit intimidation or other interference with a tenant or other occupant of the house. Under section 4 the court may make interim excluding orders where there is immediate risk of significant harm to a tenant or other occupant. The court will also be empowered to hear excluding order cases in camera. There are a number of important safeguards such as provision for appeal and for variation and discharge of orders where appropriate. I believe this new procedure will make a major contribution to the fight against anti-social behaviour in local authority housing by providing a means to target the perpetrators, to protect the victims and to leave the innocent in their homes.

Section 13 extends the application of the excluding order procedure in sections 3 to 12 to houses provided by voluntary housing bodies.

Under section 14 local authorities will be empowered on grounds of anti-social behaviour to refuse to let a dwelling or to sell a dwelling to a tenant under a purchase scheme. Consent to the resale of tenant purchase dwellings may also be refused on these grounds. This will provide valuable legal backing to the efforts of housing authorities to prevent known drug dealers from moving into their estates.

Section 15 provides for exchange of information between relevant agencies, namely, housing authorities, the Criminal Assets Bureau, the Garda Síochána, the Department of Social Welfare, health boards and voluntary housing bodies. This provision is designed to overcome the sort of difficulties experienced by different statutory agencies acting without access to relevant information which is available to another statutory agency. It is incomprehensible to local residents that one or more State agencies would be aware that an individual was a drug dealer, yet another agency would be totally unaware of the fact. The exchange of information in this area is essential for the operation of various measures under the Bill, such as the excluding order procedure, vetting of applicants for housing, tenant purchase or for supplementary welfare assistance towards rents of private accommodation.

Section 16 provides discretion for health boards to refuse or withdraw supplementary welfare assistance rent or mortgage interest supplementation for private housing in the case of persons evicted, excluded or removed from, or refused housing on grounds of anti-social behaviour. In line with the extension of the excluding order procedure to voluntary housing, the discretion to refuse or withdraw supplementation will also apply where persons have been evicted or excluded from a house provided by a voluntary housing body. Health boards must have regard to any information provided to them in relation to such persons by housing authorities or other specified bodies. There has been severe criticism of the fact that, on occasion, drug pushers evicted from local authority housing have, with the help of supplementary welfare assistance rent allowance from the health board, been rehoused in private accommodation in the same area and from where they have continued their illicit activities. Health boards argue that they simply had no option but to provide SWA rent assistance in these cases. However, in future the health boards will have discretion for the first time to refuse to fund private accommodation in such circumstances.

Section 17 amends the Social Welfare Acts to allow, in certain circumstances, for deduction of local authority rents at source from social welfare incomes. This will allow for timely pro-active intervention where rent arrears are building up. The Minister for Social Welfare will have power, after consultation with the Minister for the Environment, to make regulations providing for mandatory deduction of local authority rents from social welfare payments where rent is unpaid for a certain period or arrears exceed a certain level. This is an important and practical measure to minimise the need for eviction proceedings in order to obtain payment of rents and will, I believe, greatly reduce the need for local authorities to have to threaten or actually go to court for repossession in rent arrears cases.

Section 18 prohibits intimidation of or other interference with staff of a housing authority or a health board or members of their family or witnesses in proceedings under this Bill or in eviction proceedings. This is an important provision designed to address the sort of real difficulties which have been encountered by local authorities and tenants.

Section 19 provides that any payment made to a housing authority or other person acting in the capacity of a landlord by a squatter or a former tenant who has been given notice to quit but still remains in occupation of a dwelling will not create any tenancy rights in the dwelling. This is to remove a possible loophole whereby such persons might claim rights on the basis of such payments. The original provision in the Bill was amended to extend it from local authority housing to rented housing in general.

Section 20 provides a new power for the Garda, on notification by the housing authority, to direct people squatting in local authority accommodation and engaged in anti-social activity to leave the accommodation. Non-compliance will be an offence and gardaí will have powers of search and arrest without warrant. This is separate from and does not affect the due process of normal repossession procedures under section 62 of the Housing Act, 1966, which are excessively lengthy to deal effectively with squatting where drug dealing is involved.

Existing legal powers have been found ineffective against recurrent squatting which is associated with drug distribution, drug parties and in some instances serious intimidation of new tenants. The new powers are designed to provide a direct and effective means of addressing this serious problem. They do not apply to cases of squatting where no anti-social behaviour is involved.

Section 21 is designed to help address the question of obtaining evidence of anti-social behaviour where witnesses are in fear of serious injury or worse. It provides for acceptance by courts of statements by gardaí and housing authority or health board officials as evidence of anti-social behaviour in proceedings for repossession or excluding orders where the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for this and that other possible witnesses would be prevented from giving evidence due to intimidation.

Section 22 is unrelated to the other provisions of the Bill. It is a technical amendment to put beyond doubt the fact that a housing authority's general power under section 11 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1992, to repossess in the event of default on a loan applies to certain loans made prior to 1986 under section 5(2) of the Housing Finance Agency Act, 1981.

Section 23 contains a minor amendment of section 3 of the Housing Act, 1966, to provide that documents such as notices and orders under the Housing Acts may be served by ordinary post where a registered letter is returned undelivered.

The measures being made available in this Bill apply only in serious circumstances and will be used sparingly, but where necessary. We must always remember that local authorities are in the business of providing housing not, except where there is no other course open to them, of evicting people. Indeed, local authorities have in the past been severely criticised for the length of time it takes to secure action against even the most blatant and serious cases of anti-social behaviour. I do not accept that local authorities will use their powers in an arbitrary or cavalier manner.

The Bill is, of course, just one part of a broad ranging overall response by Government to the problem of drugs and anti-social behaviour. That broader response involves measures to tackle both the supply and demand aspects of drug abuse.

The government has put in place a package of measures to tackle the supply side — drug dealing — and the serious criminal activity that it spawns. Equally significant are initiatives to reduce the demand for drugs. These are being pursued in the context of recommendations by the ministerial task force on measures to reduce the demand for drugs. New structures have been established at national and local levels to ensure an effective response to drug abuse in society. The report of the task force, of which I am a member, put forward a comprehensive, co-ordinated package of measures comprising treatment, rehabilitation and prevention. The Government approved our recommendations and allocated £14 million for their implementation. Arising from these recommendations, I have introduced an estate improvement programme which aims to assist in tackling environmental and related problems in severely run-down local authority housing estates and flat complexes in certain disadvantaged urban areas thereby enhancing the living environment for tenants and improving estate management. The £3 million Exchequer funding being made available for this programme over the period 1997-98 will be at least matched by authorities from their own resources. Work to the value of more than £6 million will, therefore, be carried out under the programme and will have a significant beneficial effect on the areas in question.

I again emphasise that this Bill is not the total response of the Government or local authorities to drug dealing and anti-social behaviour in local authority housing estates. Since taking office as Minister of State responsible for housing and urban renewal, one of my main objectives has been to encourage and assist local authorities to improve their overall estate management not just in terms of dealing with problems but also in terms of raising standards and involving tenants positively in the management of their housing estates. To support local authorities in this respect I have introduced a number of initiatives including a housing management grants scheme and the setting up of a housing management group to promote best practice in housing management. Authorities are also being assisted to undertake a programme of training and development for their tenants.

The Housing Management Group has prepared best practice guidelines in housing management and workshops are currently being held for local authority officials. The guidelines are aimed at promoting new approaches to the delivery of housing services which place the emphasis on service quality and customer satisfaction. This is very much in line with the thrust of the recent policy document on the future of local government, A Programme for Change.

The officials who attended the workshops are broadly supportive of the approach being adopted in the guidelines and are committed to their implementation. However, this commitment must be matched by practical support at the highest levels to ensure that they are effective. For this reason, I arranged a seminar earlier this week for county and city managers to discuss housing management issues and to ensure their support for the measures now being developed in this area. I also stressed to the managers the need to adopt a co-ordinated approach to estate management which involves tenants, other statutory agencies, including the gardaí, and community and voluntary organisations.

I see improved housing estate management as a crucial step forward which will pay substantial dividends not just as fire brigade action now but more importantly in helping to prevent the same scale of problems emerging in the future. Local authorities deserve credit for the extent to which they have developed their estate management role over the past two years.

I have tried to provide a reasonably full account of this Bill and the background to it. As I indicated, it is only part of our response to a serious, complex and multi-layered issue, but it is an important and positive part of that response. I am pleased, therefore, to commend the Bill to the House and look forward to strong support for it and the objectives which it seeks to attain.

I commend the Minister for introducing this timely Bill. I am glad she organised a seminar for city and county managers with members of her staff. Perhaps she should also invite the housing officers who are directly involved in this matter. While managers are in overall control of a local authority area, housing officers work closely with tenants and may have more in common with them than a local authority manager would have. The housing officers should have a seminar of their own as this is an important part of the operational programme she envisages.

I am glad that someone is finally tackling the problem of drugs in housing estates because it puts the lives of other tenants at risk. Powers will now be invested in local authorities to evict those involved. However, if a local authority tenant is evicted, it would be easy for him to rent a house in the private sector. We should compile a dossier on such tenants. Private landlords should be compelled not to rent a house to people evicted from local authority property, otherwise all we are doing is moving the problem from one part of the community to another. If a person runs up a bad debt in one bank and tries to get money from another, the second bank can look up his record. We should implement a similar system.

I would hate to see drug barons rooted out from areas of large population only to move across the country. There is a drugs problem everywhere. It used to be a problem in cities only and not in rural areas but now it is in all parts of society. My fear is that drug barons will lift their tents and move to rural areas, perhaps to cash in on the tourism trade and interfere with other parts of the community who have built up their businesses over many years.

Stiffer penalties must be imposed. If a tenant is evicted there is a possibility of intimidation. I compliment the gardaí on their work in the Veronica Guerin murder case. She highlighted this problem. They have arrested about 135 people in connection with that crime. There is a great deal of intimidation, especially by drug barons.

Some days ago, a 14 year old boy boasted that he was making £1,600 per week from drug trafficking on his estate. This must be tackled, but where do we start? We must bring information into schools and I am glad the Vintners' Federation of Ireland has taken this on board. If all sections of the community tackle the problem we will be able to resolve it. We may not eliminate it but we will contain and control it. I compliment the young people who are distributing anti-drug badges. We must train teachers along these lines.

Years ago we heard about drugs in other countries and thought they would never reach our shores but we are now a hub for drug trafficking. I commend the gardaí, the Revenue Commissioners and Customs officers for detecting at source large quantities of drugs entering the country. It used to be the norm that only the wealthy in high society used drugs but when that market dried up the drug tycoons moved into housing estates and targeted the needy sections of our community. Naturally, they were vulnerable to that. I am glad this will be taken on board and that an attempt will be made to end it.

People against whom exclusion orders are made should be labelled for many years. They should not be able to get houses in other counties where they could set up business. That must be carefully monitored.

My local authority organised many schemes over the years where prizes were given to people who kept their housing estates tidy. Housing estates became very competitive about keeping their areas looking well. Such schemes should be promoted in order to make housing estates nicer.

When I was first elected to the local authority 18 or 19 years ago a person would have to be on a housing list for four or five years before they got a house. Thankfully, the list is much shorter now. However, when people apply for a house now it is as if they are buying a car in that they want to pick out the type of house they want. People should be made aware that taxpayers pay for these houses. Some local authority tenants run up massive rent arrears while receiving supplementary welfare allowances. They say they cannot pay their £8 or £10 rent for a house provided by the State; but they have satellite dishes costing between £400 and £600 on their houses and they also pay £400 for the MMDS service. They will not even paint their houses.

Community groups in housing estates should be promoted. I welcome the seminar for county and city managers to which the Minister of State referred. Housing staff officers should also be included in that seminar because they communicate with those groups on the ground.

Drugs are found not only in local authority housing estates but are everywhere, including the houses of the wealthiest people, although parents might not know what their children are doing. Programmes on drug awareness should be enhanced and funded.

I have pity for some drug users. However, I do not have much compassion for many of them because after a while they ignore the helping hand which is offered to them. They go on methadone programmes which they want to be able to get on demand in clinics resembling little supermarkets. Restrictions must be implemented on such programmes. Being high on drugs should not be allowed as a defence in court. That makes a mockery of good citizens who try their best and local authority tenants who try to keep their houses in proper order.

The Minister of State would be proud to go into many housing estates in her constituency which are 20 or 25 years old. Those estates are neatly kept and the tenants are proud of their homes. I am delighted to see the tenant purchase scheme being put in place. Such schemes must be enhanced. People have more pride in their homes when they own them rather than being local authority tenants. Some tenants do not bother to paint their houses and say they will get new windows when the old ones fall out. They then demand mahogany or aluminium windows. If the tenant purchase scheme could be made more attractive and if more tenants bought their homes, a sense of pride would return to those estates and transform them overnight. The older housing estates are all kept very well, with neatly decorated houses and mown lawns.

The Minister of State said "We must ensure that a new generation of barons do not have local authority housing as a nursery unit in which to develop their ugly trade". How does she intend to implement that? How can people against whom exclusion orders have not yet been made be vetted? This point might apply more to rural local authorities than those in Dublin, but when my local authority discussed the housing list we knew most of the people on the list. We knew their families, their parents, from where they came——

And which way they voted.

Many of them did not vote for us. Once they got what they were looking for, they voted whatever way they wanted, although they might pretend they were voting for us.

Local representatives contributed a great deal in that regard but it is now a managerial function. A great deal of consideration should be given to the views of local representatives because they know more about tenants than housing engineers or staff officers do. They know the background of these people and their needs. It should be emphasised to the county managers at the seminar that they should take more notice of the views of local representatives in this regard.

I have discovered in my years as a local representative that when houses are allocated in a particular town or village the local people like them to be given to people from the surrounding area. In that way they can control their communities themselves. It would be wrong to bring outsiders into the local authority system. That must be monitored.

It is wrong that communities have sought to impose their own remedies for the problem. People should not take the law into their own hands. This legislation will help local authorities to tackle the problems. Some people hold the gun in one hand and the ballot box in the other and think they are the only people who can get drugs out of an area. God only knows what they are doing to make money for their own needs.

Estate management is the core issue and exclusion orders will be vital to its success. These may be granted against specific members of a household, whether male or female, who may be misbehaving and involved in drug dealing. What mechanisms will be used to exclude them, especially in cases where the person is married and may have visiting rights?

The social welfare provisions in the Bill are welcome. Many people who have satellite dishes and other consumer goods in their homes approach public representatives on the basis that they are unable to pay their rent. This may arise because of drug related, drink, gambling and other problems. It is difficult to see a woman with children trying her best to survive while the provider, usually a male, squanders the income received from social welfare. In such circumstances she is often obliged to seek supplementary welfare allowances. While the Bill provides that local authorities may deduct rent from income squandered in this way, it is a delicate area that must be monitored carefully. How is it proposed to implement these provisions? It is my experience from involvement in local authorities that those seeking supplementary welfare benefits to try and pay the rent will not receive them because they are generally only provided for necessities such as food.

The Bill provides that local authorities may threaten court action to those in arrears. The ensuing local publicity would be a cause of acute embarrassment. In this regard local authorities take a compassionate view if a sincere attempt is made to pay back arrears, even by small amounts. They are always willing to discuss matters with tenants in difficulties and this practice should minimise the necessity to threaten court action.

I am pleased to note that the Garda are to be given more powers, including searching without warrant. These will not apply to cases involving squatters and where there is no antisocial behaviour. When a local authority house in my own County Kerry becomes available squatters often move in with their belongings, which can include donkeys and horses.

The problem is prevalent in other parts of the country, including, Sir, in your own constituency. The Bill was drafted in response to drug related operations, where housing estates are used as market places. While I welcome it, I would have preferred to see the exclusion orders against individuals extended to the private sector, otherwise the problem will be shifted to the private estates. Landlords should be entitled to ascertain if exclusion orders were issued against prospective tenants. Those who have been issued with them should not be rehoused. It would make drug barons think again.

I welcome the Bill. To take up a phrase that the Minister of State's party used over the weekend, it will "make a difference" to many local authority housing estates and local authorities whose hands have been tied because of the bureaucratic arrangements set in train by a range of legislation.

With regard to the Housing Act, 1966, Ireland, and especially urban Ireland, is a fundamentally different place today than it was then. Everybody is aware of the huge problems in local authority estates. They relate to massive unemployment and drug related, environmental and demographic problems. The Bill will make a difference to thousands of local authority tenants and to the managers who have the responsibility to house them and ensure best practice.

The ESRI report yesterday depicted a booming economy that is the pride of Europe. However, a minority of people are excluded from it. Large numbers of them are clustered in urban ghettos to the west and south-west of Dublin and in other cities and large towns. The Bill puts their interests at the centre of Government. I hope the legislation will be operable as soon as possible and that it will make a difference to those who are excluded from the lifestyles we enjoy. It is right that this House and the other House are brought face to face with the situations facing people in those communities, because they suffer massive deprivation, which is regularly seen in the low turnouts at elections.

Senator Ormonde and I are members of South Dublin County Council. At regular housing committee meetings we are told of the appalling condition of the housing stock in some instances and the appalling level of intimidation that people, mostly women, must suffer. There is an astonishingly high number of single parent families in these estates and women are being intimidated by thugs involved in drug dealing. I spoke to a member of the religious community in west Tallaght recently and she said that she is frightened working in that community for the first time in 18 years. She pointed out the level of firearms that exists in these estates. These arms are readily available and in many cases the gardaí do not want to know and will not respond adequately to the problems in these estates. I do not say that emotionally, but as a matter of fact. We are cutting these estates off from the rest of society and failing to address their concerns. However, I am confident that this legislation will deal with the real issues about which these people are concerned. People come to see me every week and describe the tension and fear on these housing estates. Young Idi Amins of 13 and 14 years of age are intimidating people and feel they have a right to physically abuse people and take others' property.

There is a sense of hopelessness and anger in these communities that I hope to articulate in speaking on this Bill. That sense of anger should be heard in the Seanad and the Dáil. I commend the Minister of State on this Bill. The backdrop to the legislation is a wholly changed housing environment with which we are only now beginning to deal.

A key concept in the Bill is that of estate management. It is vitally important that communities are involved with local authority managers and the Department of the Environment in devising a system whereby central funding and local authority moneys are used in the most effective manner. I am glad that south County Dublin is developing a number of strategies to deal with estate management, which is long overdue.

I welcome the power to exclude specific people who are causing trouble in housing estates. We are not tarring entire families under the exclusion section, but we are selection those who are causing problems in these estates. These people can now be excluded from estates as it is no longer our responsibility to house them. If they have huge incomes from drugs and they are intimidating other local authority tenants, the State should abdicate its responsibility to look after them.

I am grateful to the Minister of State for the provision in this legislation that deals with supplementary welfare assistance. Many of my constituents are concerned about the renting of private accommodation, as there is no discussion between the gardaí, local authorities and the health boards about certain people who move from local authority housing estates, get supplementary welfare assistance from the Eastern Health Board for private rented accommodation and cause worse problems in those estates. The Minister of State has included an important section in the Bill that deals with this.

I know the Minister wants this legislation enacted speedily and we on this side of the House will support it in any way we can.

I thank the Minister of State for bringing in this legislation. As she said, it is multifaceted.

I wear three hats in relation to this problem. I approach it as a member of South Dublin County Council, as a guidance counsellor who works in a disadvantaged area and as a Senator. The Minister of State is taking a huge problem on board and estate management is the key to it. We need to clear out these areas and build new environments that will create new communities and build up trust. That is the kernel of the matter.

Education is not sufficiently emphasised in this Bill. It has a huge role because most of these communities have no leaders. There is 80 to 90 per cent unemployment and many people come from dysfunctional backgrounds, so there are no value systems. There are no-go areas where home-school links cannot be created. There are no junior liaison officers to deal with problems and teachers will not move into these areas because of the fear in these estates. Schools have a huge role in solving this problem. There is an infrastructure in areas like mine, where we work with the JLOs, home-school links, remedial teachers and guidance councillors. They are moving into these areas to rehabilitate young people and build up families. We must have estate management by the local authority and I am delighted to see the increased powers of the local authorities and the gardaí in this regard. There should be leaders in these communities, but some of them have gone beyond the point of redemption. They may have to be evicted so that new families can move in.

This is a huge task that will not be completed today or tomorrow but the Minister of State might make more use of the educational input in each area. I compliment the Minister of State as this legislation will help if we all work together.

I thank Senators for their thoughtful and useful contributions. I will take their points on board as they are valid and essential to this Bill. I thank them for their support.

Question put and agreed to.
Committee Stage ordered for today at the conclusion of item 3.
Sitting suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.
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