asked the Minister for Justice if he is aware that Dublin Corporation have not yet received any application for a certificate that a dwelling is not in good tenantable repair within the meaning of section 15 of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1960 and section 8 of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1967; and that the Corporation are not using the powers available to them to apply to the court to reduce rents when dwellings are in bad repair owing to the default of landlords; and if he will take steps to make the Corporation and tenants generally aware of their rights under those sections and of the desirability of using them.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Repair of Dublin Dwellings.
33.
I am aware that the position is as stated in the first two parts of the question.
I am informed that Dublin Corporation have not used the powers given to them by section 15 of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1960, as amended, to apply to the court to have the rent of controlled dwellings reduced until repairs are carried out. This is because it would be necessary for them to establish that the dwellings concerned are rent controlled in each case and because, in any event, they regard the powers they have under other enactments to compel landlords to do repairs as being more speedy and effective.
In the circumstances, I do not consider that any action is necessary regarding the suggestion in the last part of the Deputy's question.
Is the Minister aware that Dublin City Manager has conveyed that this power to make application to have rents reduced was available only to the tenant and was not available to Dublin Corporation?
He is not quite right in that but he does consider, as I am sure the Corporation do also, that they have adequate powers under the Public Health Acts to do this job. The Deputy is right in this respect that he has, in addition to that, power to move under the Rent Restrictions Act.
If Dublin Corporation have the powers, they are not using them. This city is full at the moment of uninhabitable dwellings or dwellings unfit for human habitation and the Corporation are failing to exercise the powers available to them.
That is a matter for Dublin Corporation. We have given the powers in legislation. It is a matter for the Corporation to decide. The Deputy, as a member of the Corporation, should do something about it.
If, as the Minister is aware, Dublin Corporation are not executing their statutory rights for the protection of the unfortunate citizens in these uninhabitable dwellings, will the Minister take stronger power or take steps to oblige the Corporation to see to it that this pool of uninhabitable dwellings in this city is cleared up once and for all?
Deputy Dowling will take it up for you.
There is no evidence that the proper rights of the Manager are not being exercised. He has under the various Acts ample powers to exercise his rights in this respect and only last year Dublin Corporation brought summonses under the Public Health Acts against various landlords in this city in 180 cases, apart from other cases where they threatened such action.
It should have been 10,000, not 180.
Would the Minister not agree with me that it was the failure to use powers of this kind that gave rise to the Rachmann scandal in London and will he not either himself facilitate poor tenants to get their rights under these powers or ask his colleague, the Minister for Local Government, to move the Corporation to act under these powers so that a Rachmannite scandal will not grow and develop in this city?
The Deputy is raising a matter that is not strictly relevant to Deputy Ryan's question.
I can assure the Minister that the matter raised by Deputy Dillon is directly relevant and is much better expressed by Deputy Dillon than I could have expressed it. It is entirely on the point that the Minister will not deal with.
The solution is to get a Fianna Fáil majority on Dublin Corporation?
And have more Mountjoy Squares? The people getting away with it are the people with low standards in high places.
(Interruptions.)
Will Deputy Dowling cease interrupting, please? Question No. 34.